


The Wind In The Abyss

by Speedy1236



Category: Sonic the Comic, Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Chaos Emeralds, Character Study, Developing Friendships, Friendship, Gen, Sonicverse Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-07
Updated: 2011-10-07
Packaged: 2020-03-01 15:57:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 45,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18803542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Speedy1236/pseuds/Speedy1236
Summary: When a chain of unfortunate events seems to threaten the very existence of Mobius, Sonic is forced to face his worst demon. But how can you control the incarnation of lacking control? Or can't you?Partly AU, basically a transition from STC into game universe, set in a timeline starting with the Fleetway canon and going into a pre-SA2 game timeline.





	1. Prologue: Sleepless

**Author's Note:**

> Speedy's note: As the summery already says, this is a kind of crossover between the original game canon and the STC comics… I guess you could call it a transition, starting from a Fleetway background, and ending in my regular game-based universe thing.
> 
> Making this crossover work without making a huge mess out of it turned out much more complicated than it may look on first sight. Even the source material itself (game canon and comic series alike) is full of plotholes and contradictions in terms. So, I couldn't avoid putting up some basic principles for this story's universe to work with:  
> 1) The Chaos Emeralds were once halved and later fused together; while separated the halves are much less powerful.  
> 2) Each Chaos Emerald holds a special power; all together they are the most powerful.  
> 3) The Master Emerald is the object to control and stabilize the Chaos Emeralds, and can only be used by its guardian.  
> 4) The Chaos Emeralds only interact with especially gifted individuals, like Sonic or Shadow (although the latter is still frozen in stasis at the time the story is set). Characters like Robotnik, Tails, or Amy cannot use them directly.
> 
> Knowledge of both series might be helpful, but shouldn't be necessary.
> 
> Set a few months after the Chaos creature was defeated in the official Fleetway series (aka after the end of the Fleetway adaption of Sonic Adventure 1).

**The Wind In The Abyss**

**Prologue:** **Sleepless**

Tongues of fire licked on the meadow all around him, black smoke rising up to darken the sky to an opaque blackness. Black as the unbearable powers that had consumed his mind, his consciousness, without any chance of resistance.

The wreckage surrounding him was the only thing left to tell him what the powers had done to him. Done _with_ him. Made him do. While he had known nothing about it, he had killed his friends. The ones that were always standing behind him, securing his back, securing _him_. But in the end, he had been too weak to protect them from the demon within. Would he always be a danger to the ones close to him? Was it really like that?

Sonic took a breath of the heavy air, fully aware to breathe the smoke that came from the Tornado, to be breathing death. The blue hedgehog fell to his knees, tears running down his cheeks, and a cry rose from his throat, filled with the agony of desperation, loss and fear. He was alone now. All alone. Alone with himself and the thing within, the powers he couldn't contain and couldn't get out as he wanted, and with the knowledge that they could make him do this _again_.

Anytime. Anywhere.

Suddenly Sonic wanted nothing more than to run. He needed away from here. He couldn't stand the smell of death any more, neither the images of what had to have happened his mind automatically produced even though he didn't remember. The false memory, born of terrified imagination, was colourful enough as it was...

When he tried to run away, just away, he found his limbs caught and restrained. Sonic kicked out, struggled against it and –

Shot upwards to a seating position. Green eyes snapped open to see a dark room and he found himself knotted into his bed sheets. Drawing a deep gasp of much needed air he slowly realized he had been dreaming. His heart beat so hard against his ribcage it hurt and he was drenched in cold sweat.

The blue hedgehog freed himself from the covers and sat on the edge of his bed. "Damn freaking nightmares," he mumbled groggily as he wiped the wet film off his face. He looked over to the alarm clock on the bedside table, vision blurred by tiredness. Two in the morning. "Oh great…"

No way he could go back to sleep now. He knew if he tried to relax and drop off again, the pictures would be coming flooding back and keep him awake anyway. It was not the first time he'd been rudely wakened up by that dream. Although it was more than a year ago now. Although something like it had not happened for a long time, not since they had defeated the Chaos creature and maybe also Super Sonic. But Sonic would only believe it if he knew for certain... and that would maybe be never.

The past months had been pretty calm compared with his usual life. After Porker had found a way to raise the sunken Floating Island, they had heard little from Knuckles. The red echidna seemed happy to have his home back to himself.

Robotnik had not attacked anything in the past half a year. It was already getting boring, although Sonic and the other freedom fighters were sure he was just out of sight as long as he plotted a new plan…But still, life was about to return to a calm way on Mobius while he didn't.

The blue hedgehog sighed. He had very much relaxed in the past months. In six weeks, he would turn fifteen and maybe it would be the first birthday in years without any interference from rampaging badniks and crazed human scientists. And here he was, wide awake in the middle of a perfectly calm night, haunted by things that had never been in his powers to avoid.

Sonic was no-one to care much about the past. It was the past, so you couldn't change anything about it. _His_ look was forwards, not back, but those damned, stupid nightmares seemed very eager to make him do something that was not even in his nature.

Slowly starting to get fully awake, Sonic leaned down to the floor to take on his socks and runners, then he reached for the bedside table to put on his gloves. If he couldn't sleep anyway, there was no point staying here. It was better he found himself something to do.

* * *

In the freedom fighters' main computer room a small pig sat in midst of several screens. Since the Kintobor computer had gone down half a year ago he worked here almost all the time, trying to repair what was still repairable. Porker Lewis was talented when it came to computers, over years he'd worked with many on the surface, and then during the months he'd spend on Angel Island after leaving the freedom fighters temporarily after his capture by the Brotherhood of Metallixes he'd got to know the very different kind of technology on the Floating Island.

But even Porker could so far only guess that the measures Robotnik and his aid Grimer had taken some time ago to take over the gangs Kintobor computer and turn it against them had left some damage in the circuits. Maybe it had even been a virus. All Kintobor data was gone, as well as most of their other things wiped clear off the databanks. It had taken months to build a truly working powerful computer system. It would of course never replace the old one. All of the freedom fighters still secretly hoped to find a way repairing Kintobor. So far it didn't look like it though, but you could never know.

Interestedly Porker Lewis' eyes scanned the texts and the grids full of numbers that filled his screen. He'd never noticed this object before, but it was of a remarkable size and certainly worth some research… and if he –

The pig stiffened in alarm and span around on his chair at the sudden sound of footsteps in the silent house, then relaxed when he caught sight of the blue hedgehog poking his head through the door. Porker sagged with relief. No killer robots or something. "Hi Sonic."

"You're still up?", Sonic asked as he fully stepped into the room.

Porker looked the hedgehog up and down while he slowly strolled over to him. Sonic had grown considerably during the past year. Growing had also included his quills getting somewhat longer, and generally given the hedgehog a more lean physique. He still wasn't the tallest, but very likely wouldn't become it anyway as the way he had grown to mostly adult hedgehog proportions implied he wouldn't get that much taller.

And it had not changed his attitude at all. He was still the same reckless, running-addicted and often cocky hedgehog Porker knew for years. And would likely stay it.

"Hello? Have you fallen asleep?" Sonic grinned.

"No... I was just realizing how much you've grown recently and stuff." Porker shrugged.

The hedgehog's grin broadened. "Yeah, haven't I?" He looked himself down briefly. "A little more size was in order, don't you think?"

When Sonic's gaze returned to his friend, Porker noticed the bloodshed tiredness in the green eyes that so little matched his leisure tone, but he did his best to pretend he hadn't. "I guess so." Porker shrugged again. "How late is it?"

"Ahem, two in the morning?" Sonic hopped to sit on a table, dangling his legs. "You don't know?"

"I got kinda stuck here, I guess." The pig pointed at the screens. "How comes YOU are still up?"

"I couldn't sleep." Sonic's features darkened for just a second and Porker refrained from asking any further.

"Are you hungry?", he asked instead.

His blue late-night companion grinned. "This hedgehog is always hungry. I'm Sonic."

"I kinda figured."

* * *

The smoke rising from the Island's center volcano slightly blurred the starry sky. Knuckles let a last glance travel over the crater and turned around, slowly wandering down the slope into the shrubbery surrounding the edges of lava reef.

Looking around it was almost impossible to see that just a few months ago, everything around had been a couple kilometres below the surface of the ocean. Knuckles allowed a small smile of content and pride to slip on his face. Sure, it had taken the assistance of his allies from the surface to get Angel Island back up, but most of the rest was his work alone. The guardian couldn't help a sense of certainty that the very island itself had helped restoring what had been before. When he'd left shortly after raising the island to recollect the Chaos Emeralds to make sure the powerful gems stayed at a safe place, everything had still been a mess. Yet by the time he'd returned home, new plants had been growing everywhere.

Now, seeing a prospering Floating Island its guardian found it hard to believe what he knew had happened not far ago, but Knuckles had decided that was a good thing.

He walked a few minutes until the smell of sulphur had completely faded into the soft scent of night's dew and the plants had changed to a light forest. Stepping out onto a tiny clearing, the island's guardian slipped down onto the moss, stretching out on his back to end this day and get some rest until the next would begin.

Eyelids just starting to grow heavy, Knuckles' gaze aimlessly wandered over the sky, trailing from one star to another. He blinked, about to allow his eyes to get lost in the maze of twinkles and then slide shut, when he tracked a small reddish light. It was almost invisible in front of the countless stars, but even Knuckles' already sleepy senses immediately knew that it was not supposed to be there.

The echidna forced his eyes to fully open again, now really looking at the small dot of red. It was pulsing in a quick frequency and while he watched, it slowly moved to the right.

Knuckles narrowed his amethyst eyes. Something was up there. Or somebody... And he didn't like at all they were crossing over _his_ island.

 


	2. Initial Conditions

_Chaos, unlike widely assumed, is not a state of total disorder. It involves a certain degree of randomness, but isn't random in itself. For a dynamical system to be classified as 'chaotic', it must have at least the following properties:_   
_1\. It is sensitive to initial conditions and even tiny changes to them may greatly change the outcome._   
_2\. It is very changeable and often varies (called 'topologically mixing')._   
_3\. During its constant changes, it will never entirely return to the starting point. It gets close to this point, but chaos never repeats itself completely (this is called having 'dense periodic orbits'... sounds smart, doesn't it?)_   
_\- a very trivial and not very scientifically correct interpretation of the chaos theory-_

* * *

 

**Initial Conditions**

Hopping out of his small biplane, Tails shouldered the bag with provisions he'd just bought and carried everything upstairs. Like usual, the Freedom Fighters' headquarters was a mess. The moment Tails made it through the door, he had to jump over a pile of empty pizza cardboard boxes. Almost falling down and dropping his bag, the two-tailed fox franctically moved out of the way of the small mount of dirty clothing he met halfway up the stairs. Trying to get further up the treads without slipping on old socks lying around where someone carelessly dropped them, it took Tails a few seconds to register he could use his twin namesakes for assistance.

Finally reaching the upper floor, the fox noticed distractedly that Amy really needed to come over or else they'd drown in this chaos. He snickered, Sonic wouldn't be overly fond of the idea, nor of the lecture they were all in for as soon as the pink girl saw the newest result of the group's lacking housekeeping qualities. Shrugging the speech of doom off for now, Tails dropped the bag a step after the kitchen's threshold. The stuff could be stored away later. First he wanted to say hi to his friends.

Following the sounds of the TV, the little two-tailed fox made his way over to the big living room. "Hello everybody," he shouted cheerfully when he entered, but he didn't get any answers.

Walking round the sofa, Tails found Sonic on the sofa in a position somewhere between loosely curled up and getting a knot in his limbs; one foot on the low couch table, the other one on the sofa, one of his hands under his cheek and the other arm hanging down the side of the couch. At least it was rather obvious why the hedgehog hadn't answered him – he was fast asleep... in spite of his unhealthy and uncomfortable looking position and the noise from the TV.

Tails frowned and poked Sonic's shoulder. "Hey!"

The sleeping hedgehog gave a small grunt and shifted away from Tails' fingers, deeper into the sofa.

"Sonic!"

Now, disturbed by the fox' poking, the blue hedgehog curled up tighter, ears folding against his head as if the wanted to shut Tails' calls out.

"Leave him, Tails."

The fox looked up at the sound of Porker Lewis' voice. "Hi Porker!"

"Hello Tails." The pig stepped fully through the door and came over to Tails' side. He pointed down onto the spiky lump on the sofa. "He was up almost the whole night. Let him sleep."

"Why was he?", Tails asked, a lot quieter already.

Porker shrugged. "Don't know. He didn't look as if he'd appreciate being asked, so I didn't. Maybe _you_ can ask him later. If he talks to anyone, then to you." Although Porker knew Sonic for several years now, no one was as close to him as Tails. Well, maybe Johnny had been…

Tails nodded. "Maybe." He looked down on Sonic again. At least now he seemed as if none of his limbs would die due to cut-off circulation here while he slept. The fox reached for the remote and turned off the noisy TV. He shook his head while he watched Sonic's pointy ears slightly tip back up. "Well, then sleep tight."

"You want to come with me?", Porker asked. "I found some weird object above the planet yesterday evening. I'd like to find out what it is."

"Of course! Maybe it's Robotnik!" Tails strolled back to the door.

Following him, Porker grimaced. "I'd prefer it to be something else."

* * *

"Porker?"

"Yes?" The pig turned around to Tails.

"Whatever it is, it can't be an asteroid." Tails pointed at one of the screens. Unlike the rest of the base, the computer room was surprisingly orderly. "Asteroids move on orbits around heavier objects. The planets, moons, the sun… This thing here doesn't. It remains always in a position above Aquatic Ruins. What means…"

"It is artificial," Porker finished for him. "It's a satellite."

Tails nodded. "Yeah. A pretty big one."

Porker nodded appreciatively. The past months he'd spend down on the surface again had shown him that the young fox was not only a skilled pilot and a talented mechanic, but had also a lot of skills and knowledge when it came to physics. Right now Tails was being a big help. "You're right. Anything we can say about the form and size?"

Tails turned back to the screens. "Its orbit is about forty kilometres above the surface. And it's round. A ring."

"Really?" Porker leaned past Tails and typed a few commands into the keyboard. For a second the screen turned dark, then the remotely three-dimensional image of a ring appeared on it. "You're right."

Tails beamed proudly. "Of course I am!"

Porker typed again and several lines of number were added to the shapes of the ring. "Wow…" Porker took a deep breath. "That thing's huge…"

Tails nodded, blue eyes wide with awe. "Six and a half kilometres. That's one heck of a diameter!"

"You can say so…" Porker shook his head. He couldn't really share Tails' fascination. The only person Porker knew capable of building such a thing was Robotnik.

And Robotnik never built anything just for the fun of it.

* * *

Knuckles put his binoculars down. Looking into the blue sky was no help at all. Whatever the thing he had seen last night was, it had disappeared pretty fast, and so far it had not come back.

Maybe it really was nothing. If someone had been aiming for Angel Island, he'd landed here already... and Knuckles would know if someone had.

Still, the echidna decided to change the island's position. He was uneasy about having people cross over the Floating Island, and it was better for security to be too cautious.

While he slowly walked back down the hill he'd climbed on for his useless observations, the idea to ask his allies down on the surface to look for the mysterious thing appeared to him. The Freedom Fighters' base was well equipped when it came to technology of all kinds; their chances to track the passing somebody were much bigger than his with the help of some tiny binoculars.

A few minutes later the guardian stepped into one of the numerous caves all over the island that served him as houserooms and hideouts. He snatched his radio set from a wooden box and walked outside again.

Switching the small device on, Knuckles' eyes narrowed at the screeching and cracking the loudspeakers gave, then he realized he might be too close to the Master Emerald again; it sometimes interfered with the radio. Knuckles' experiences with the effect were not very big, though; he rarely used the radio at all.

The echidna had already lifted one foot to walk away when he froze startled as the unorganized noise faded into speech. " _-finally tracked the perfect position to construct the portal,_ " a male voice was saying; and even through the unsteady sound of the radio Knuckles recognized the voice of the archenemy immediately.

"Robotnik…", he mumbled under his breath, staring down onto the small radio.

" _It was only my scientific genius that enabled me to localize the exact position of the core space-time gap that exists between our worlds,"_ Robotnik continued.

" _Our ancestors have knowledge of the existence of that core for thousands of years already,"_ another voice interjected, one Knuckles couldn't place. _"Without our advice you would have never found it. The great Drakon Empire has used the existence of said weakness in the space-time's structure many times before. We once had teleporter rings all over the planet Mobius."_

" _I know, I know, my dear friend. There is no need to argue; we are allies now. Just with our combined knowledge and wisdom we are unstoppable."_ Robotnik laughed. _"But you will agree that you lost your influence on this planet centuries ago, and the small side-entrances your tiny ring-portals formed were never suited to become passages for big armies of Persecutors."_

Robotnik's so-called 'ally' snorted. _"We are not planning to maintain the mistakes of the past. With your portal, built after our mutual plans, the strings of energy that cross between our dimensions will be fused in one mighty passageway."_

Robotnik laughed. _"The furry fools inhabiting this hunk of rock will be down before they know what hit them."_

" _Celebrations and tales of the brave are to be held after the war. I recall you mentioning difficulties in building the portal."_

" _Aww… Those are tiny, unimportant things. My calculations resulted in the notion that a possible break-down of the portal during times of activity might cause a complete and final interruption of the energetic connection of our dimensions, but the probabilities of an incident like that are extremely small. We are more likely to be stricken by a lightening while we talk. The usual risk of existence."_ Robotnik snickered. _"Nothing that shall stand in our way."_

" _Good. We expect you to carry out our plans with the highest caution. How long do you think the work will take now?"_

" _Three weeks. Minimum. The hypernano technology used is highly difficult to install, most of the important steps require my supervision and cannot be carried out by robots on their own…"_

" _Acknowledged. We expect you to inform us in case of any delays or interferences."_

" _Of course, my dear Drakon friends."_ The loudspeakers cracked and Knuckles was surrounded by silence once more.

The red echidna stood for almost a minute, staring down on the mute radio. Had the Master Emerald's interference by chance locked him onto Robotnik's frequency? Knuckles couldn't imagine the mad scientist to hold this kind of conversations in public.

But however, he had been eavesdropping on a war conference. Between Robotnik and the Drakon Empire; and if he'd gotten everything right, they wanted to invade Mobius through a 'dimensional portal' Robotnik currently built.

Now he really needed to contact the others on the surface.

* * *

"And we have nothing to hold against it. After Knuckles informed us, Tails and I scanned the ring Robotnik builds in Mobius' orbit, by the way still _inside_ the atmosphere. It really is positioned inside a energetically outstanding region that marks the most intense position of the interdimensional connection between Mobius and the Drakon world. When Robotnik opens the gap in space-time to let the Drakons in… what should we put against them? They're just too many and too well equipped." Porker sat back heavily, barely held down panic obviously creeping into his voice.

"I'll fight anyway," Sonic declared stubbornly.

"Sonic, you will take out ten or hundred or whatever… and then they'll shoot you down," Amy interjected, "It's just too dangerous."

"Ah yes, too dangerous. _This_ hedgehog laughs in face of danger." Sonic's arms folded on his chest. "We cannot let that insane Eggbreath and those fishy Drakons take over our planet. You know what they'll do once they get their hands on the Chaos Emeralds, don't you?"

Amy and Porker lowered their eyes, Tails nervously twirled his bushy namesakes, and even Knuckles' brow wrinkled.

Sonic looked between the desperate faces. "We got three weeks to think of defences judging from that message, right? Robotnik needs that time to finish his stuff. Porker? Tell me you got an idea."

The pig shook his head in defeat. "I don't. I'm sorry, Sonic. Nothing on this planet is strong enough to stand a chance against these forces. We've got not a single power source that could stand against a torn open space-time gap crowded by Persecutors."

"We've got the Chaos Emeralds," Knuckles' voice through the radio broke the awkward silence.

Sonic's head snapped to the screen that showed the group on the surface an image of the red guardian up on his island. "Can you use them?"

The echidna shook his head. "No. The Master Emerald powers the Floating Island and its defences. The Chaos Emeralds can't add to it. I'm the Master's guardian. I'm not supposed to use the Chaos Emeralds."

"Then your idea is crap, Knucklehead," Sonic muttered. "It won't help us if they lie around... And in fact, has there ever been anything good and helpful to come from them?"

"The Emeralds are just useful with someone to control them, to unify the seven fragments of power to one," Knuckles explained, completely ignoring the hedgehog's comments. "The old legends say just a few gifted people will ever have the ability to interact with the powers of chaos."

"Oh great, then go ahead, Red, you got three weeks to find one." Sonic grimaced.

"Maybe we can help!" Tails looked up, catching Knuckles' idea as the first spark of hope he heard today. "What kind of person is that?"

"You need a sharp sense for the powers, a great sensitiveness to their influence," the echidna replied surprisingly willingly. "Very few people will interact with chaos powers that way at all…" Knuckles tilted his head in thought.

"I know who does…", Tails called.

Sonic stiffened as the gazes of all four suddenly focussed on him, causing him to take an unconscious step backwards. "Hey, why are you looking at me?"

"Tails is kinda right; you _are_ highly sensitive to chaos energy…", Porker started carefully.

"Yeah, I'm so damn _sensitive_ " - the blue hedgehog spat out the word – "that it makes me… you know what it makes me! You've seen it happen! And it happened far too often!"

"Calm _down_ ," Amy tried, "We still have no evidence that you will turn super again at all. You haven't since the incident with the chaos monster… and you didn't a long while before…"

"I couldn't a long time before, 'cause Super was no longer a part of me and in the Special Zone!", Sonic shouted. "And I was never put close to chaos energy ever since, neither in a lot of stress! She fused him back into me, you remember? Super could as well be still there!"

"And can as well be gone forever. We may never know…" Knuckles remarked.

"And you know what, Knucklehead? I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!" Sonic took another small step backwards.

"Sonic, the chaos energy can be controlled if you know how," Knuckles said slowly, remaining completely calm even to the hedgehog's outburst. "Super Sonic - if you can control yourself -could be the most powerful defence for all of us."

"You say it: IF!" Sonic's quills ridged on his back. "IF I could control anything of it, I might help fight the enemies. But if NOT, I'm just as likely to destroy the planet before _they_ get ready deciding where to start!" With the last word shouted, Sonic span on his heels and was gone in a flash of blue, leaving just a sharp whirl of wind behind that tossed up the papers and sheets on the tables.

"Just what was that?" Amy stared after him.

Porker turned back around to the screen just to avoid having Knuckles look at everybody's backsides. "He's scared," he said quietly.

"Sonic isn't scared of anything!", Tails contradicted, "If he hears you say that, he'll get mad at you… Or maybe he already is …"

Porker shook his head. "I'd never dare saying that aloud while he's here… but becoming Super Sonic and possibly harm some of us, or just people he wants to protect is the only thing I'm sure Sonic is scared of. – Besides water," he added after a moment.

Amy turned finally from the doorway to look at the echidna on the screen. "Do you really think there's any chance he could control it? He tried before and always couldn't do anything to prevent going super."

"I didn't mean I want to prevent it." Knuckles thoughtfully looked at the girl for a moment, then slowly inclined his head. "Have you ever considered that a lot about him has changed since his contact with the chaos creature and all of that? And I'm not talking about his eye color."

"You mean, it might have had another, bigger effect on him?", Porker asked. "I tried finding out about that, but nothing turned out…"

"But it's not mainly that I mean about Sonic having changed." Knuckles paused for a little moment. "Control requires maturity."

"Huh?" Tails and Amy exchanged glances.

"Not one legend about the powers of chaos being used talks about children," Knuckles explained. "I'm saying Sonic was too young to both mentally and physically put anything against these strong powers. Maybe he still is, but there is just one way to find out."

"But that whole Super Sonic deal didn't really turn better over the years…" Porker doubtfully shook his head.

"Controlling a force like that is not talent," the red echidna noticed, unfazed by their doubts. "Not at all. You need to learn it. You need to learn to _resist_ it."

"But what if Sonic is right? What if he turns super as soon as he comes close to the Chaos Emeralds and starts destroying the planet?", Amy asked cautiously.

Knuckles shrugged as if indifferent. "It doesn't much matter if _he_ destroys it or Robotnik and the Drakons, does it?"

Porker sighed. " _You_ tell him that."


	3. Plan?

**Plan?**

A ball of blue razor spikes smashed into the robot's body at full force. "Out of my way, junkbot!", Sonic shouted as he regained his feet running, just to launch himself at the next group of Badniks. The hedgehog bounced into the first, ricocheted into the second and stomped down onto the third.

Freeing himself from pieces of wreckage, Sonic cast a glance around and yelped at the sizzling sound and the blinding brightness of a laser gun shot. Diving for cover, Sonic landed rolling on his shoulder. Spinning on his heels in the same movement that brought him back on his feet, the blue hedgehog spinballed in direction of the newly appeared swatbots.

He knew he shouldn't be here. Actually, he'd not planned going here at all. For obscure reasons he'd ended up smashing into Robotnik's base.

Defence was a lot less organized than usual. The boss wasn't 'at home' and the crowd of robots was slightly overcharged with the blue hedgehog racing through the labyrinth of humming machine blocks.

But still, there was no point doing this. There was no reason to smash the robots that guarded the base. Neither running around like this at all. But he couldn't stay there. The idea was sick. Insane. Absolutely crazy. Suicidal even.

Sonic grunted as the suddenly striking arm of a swatbot catapulted him straight against the next wall. Muttering a curse, the hedgehog crawled back to his feet and stubbornly got back at the robot, ducking past a newly attacking arm and spin-jumping right onto the machine.

The usually satisfying sound of the armor cracking and the crumbling of the robot that followed it went almost unnoticed as Sonic was already running again, slaloming around the buildings in his way and dodging the occasional shots aimed at him, but not truly paying attention to the battle.

It wouldn't work like this. The Persecutors had always been strong opponents to fight, and they'd never before met more than a handful of the Drakons' war machines. Them together with the most likely to be already invented sick Robotnik-machines… Amy was right. He'd take out a few, the others would take out a few… make it hundred or thousand even. Never close to enough. Never close to a fair chance... but Robotnik had never aimed at being fair. Nothing of this was fair.

Still, there had to be a way. There just had to. He'd always found one. If there was a chance to beat the odds, it was Sonic the Hedgehog's job doing it.

If he'd follow Knuckles' idea… what if he would end up really destroying everything he'd ever fought for? Everything that was worth being protected? If he really did turn super, the chances that he'd kill Robotnik were as big as killing his friends or himself. Was that worth it?

But what if the echidna was right? What if there was just a tiny chance he wouldn't? What if he wouldn't have taken that chance and the Drakons and Robotnik succeeded? He'd never know if he would have been able to prevent it. Anyway, what were their chances if he didn't try?

"Damn it all…" With a loud crash, Sonic smashed through the enforcement of the base's perimeter.

* * *

Knuckles frowned down onto the screen of his handheld communicator, showing him a good view on the freedom fighters' headquarters.

"What if we'd smash that portal ring thing of his?" Amy paced the room.

"How do you suggest we smash it?", Porker asked slowly.

"We shoot a rocket at it." The pink girl paced back.

"It's too big to be truly damaged by anything we shoot at it…", Tails took over answering for the pig.

"Sh-oot!" Amy dropped onto one of the chairs standing around, just to stand up again as soon as she sat. "There is no point sitting around here. We're discussing for hours and nothing has turned out!"

Knuckles looked down onto the small screen of his communicator. "We have found multiple ways how _not_ to destroy Robotnik's machine," he pointed out sarcastically.

"Knuckles is right, we already sorted out everything that doesn't work, maybe now we'll soon find the way it will work...", Tails put in, trying to cheer the others up.

"Sure we will…", Amy mumbled annoyedly. "You know what? I will go home now, do some shopping and make myself a coffee. I'll call you guys if I get a brainwave."

"Okay, Amy." Porker nodded at the hedgehog girl when she left. For a minute he sat still looking after her, then he turned back to where Knuckles could see his face. "Maybe she's right and we should all take a break. This is leading us nowhere."

Knuckles was about to open his mouth to answer when someone else did.

"What is leading nowhere?"

Tails and Porker's images on the screen turned around as Sonic stepped into the picture, looking dirty and tired.

"Sonic," Knuckles addressed the hedgehog before anybody else could say something. "We all just think that the chances to have any form of success if you-"

"Spare your breath, Red," Sonic interrupted, "I'll do it."

"You – _what_?", Porker choked out.

"Are you deaf? I said I'll do it." Sonic turned from the pig to look at Knuckles. "Don't say anything or I might change my mind."

The echidna just looked at the hedgehog, knowing full well it had been a hard decision, and nodded.

* * *

Tails leaned down from the biplane's cockpit, looking down on Sonic and Knuckles. "Porker and I will try finding something else to do against Robotnik's invasion plans."

Knuckles nodded. "It can't hurt. The more plans we have, the better."

"I can leave you here without risking the two of you smashing each other's skulls?" Tails smiled good-heartedly.

Sonic grimaced. "Sure. I'll do my best not to kill him."

Knuckles snickered. "We have work to do together. I'll try keeping him in a good mood, don't worry, Tails…"

Sonic grunted, but didn't comment further.

Tails looked between the two and started his engine. "Then good luck, guys."

"We need it," Sonic muttered under his breath, finding by the glance Knuckles shot him the guardian had very accurate hearing in spite of the lack of visible ears. Ignoring him, Sonic forced a smile on his face as he waved up to Tails. "See ya later, little bro!"

"Bye Sonic! Bye Knuckles!", the fox called waving back while the Tornado slowly started to roll over the meadow.

Sonic stood still gazing after the biplane hopping slightly over the bumpy subsoil but quickly gathering speed and soon lifting up and climbing straight into the flawlessly blue sky.

Knuckles silently eyed the hedgehog. The emerald eyes clung to the little plane as if it was a fading opportunity to escape something entirely evil. The echidna wasn't quite used to see Sonic stand around; the hedgehog rarely did. Usually you always found him moving in the one or other way. Now he stood stiffly, and Knuckles' sharp eyes couldn't miss on the strain that had braced all of the not big, but tough muscles under his skin and fur. The hedgehog's body was a bow spanned to near breaking point.

Not at all a good starting condition for teaching him anything about control and measuring of chaos powers. Knuckles frowned. He had somewhat expected that... He would need a less direct approach.

The guardian folded his arms, still sideways looking at Sonic and waited the almost five minutes until the hedgehog turned to him. "You ready?", he asked then.

Sonic grimaced. "As ready as I can be for doing something absolutely crazy."

"It is _not_ crazy, Sonic," Knuckles calmly contradicted, biting down the comment that Sonic usually spent his life doing nothing but crazy things. It was not the time for comments at all.

"Says who? You? You don't know, Red. It has never happened to you." Sonic firmly crossed his arms.

Silently skipping on being pet-named, Knuckles tried meeting Sonic's eyes. "No, it has not. But I have seen it happen. I have seen many things like that happen. I control the Master, Sonic."

"Maybe that's easier," Sonic muttered. "Maybe the freaky big stone likes you or something. Maybe you're a natural talent."

Knuckles slowly inclined his head, but decided against telling Sonic he most likely was, after all, he had been chosen as the Master Emerald's guardian not without a reason. Instead, he regarded the hedgehog for a moment and took a small pause before he spoke. "Do you know anything about chaos other than that it is dangerous?"

Sonic gave him a stern look. "I know it makes me do bad things. I know it hurts me."

Knuckles still just calmly looked at him. "When you got hurt fighting Robotnik, what did you do?"

The hedgehog frowned. "What do you think I did, Red? Bite my lip and go on…"

The echidna shook his head. "Sure. But that was not what I meant. You used the rings."

Sonic blinked. "Eh.. yes?"

"The golden rings are chaos. The weakest manifestation of chaos we know, but chaos after all."

Sonic narrowed his eyes. "I know that. If I had enough of them I sometimes turned super even without any Emeralds in reach."

Knuckles nodded. "Yes. But used at the right moment in the right amount, they do good not harm."

One of Sonic's ears flicked. "Ah, now you're going to tell me 'take just a bit of freaky Emerald stuff and its all fine'…"

The echidna shook his head. "That wasn't exactly the idea, no. Although, even saying you have a strange way of putting it, one Chaos Emerald is less dangerous than more of them. The Emeralds are… one unity split into seven bodies, you could say. They belong together. Their powers increase the more of them get close together."

Now Sonic looked stern again. "They get _unstable_ when you put them together. Even with cooling you can't keep all seven together."

Knuckles calmly shook his head. "I keep all seven together."

"You're a wizard, Red." Sonic pulled a face.

"No." The guardian shook his head again. "With chaos it is as with many things. You need to know how it works. Come on, I'll show you something more about how things work."

Sonic frowned, grumbling under his breath, but reluctantly followed Knuckles. _Wherever the red idiot is going…_


	4. Mystics

**Mystics**

The small path was winding through narrow places between big trees and thick undergrowth. In front of him Knuckles stopped and pulled an armful of branches aside, gesturing to him to step through the gap.

Sonic stopped right after he did. He stood on the edge of a large, almost round meadow in between of thick forest; the grass long enough to reach past his ankles and still heavy with remains of dew. The midst of the clearing was occupied with ruins; the rocks they had been built from centuries ago slightly shimmering in all shades of grey and partly covered by layers of dark green moss. Sonic's eyes trailed along the circle of pillars, still recognizable even after all those years that must have passed, and to the long stairway it surrounded.

"What is this place?", he asked, voice quiet with awe.

"It used to be the _Temple of Chaos_ ," Knuckles replied from his side. "Before the big war, the release of the Chaos Creature and all that, before Hidden Palace was built, my ancestors kept the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald here."

"And then they got it underground?"

"Yes. For safety."

Sonic turned to Knuckles. "Safety? Then it didn't help that much, did it?"

The guardian shook his head, seeming to ignore the small needling. "No, not really. If we manage to get rid of the Drakons and everything, maybe I'll take the Master Emerald back here. It is the original place after all…"

Sonic watched Knuckles' eyes trail over the ruins with a rarely seen touch in them. _Regret? Sadness? Or just thoughtfulness?_ The hedgehog frowned and forced his gaze away. Not his business after all.

Knuckles seemed to have caught himself a short moment later, he slowly stepped out onto the meadow to walk towards the ruins, his feet leaving deep prints in the damp grass. Following closely behind, Sonic's gaze kept trailing around. Each of the toppled or broken parts of the ancient building offered a new view once you closed in on it and walked around.

As they stepped through the circle of pillars, the beams of sunlight seemed to break on the top of the nearest column, sharp lances of brightness striking down and forcing the droplets of dew on the ground and in the moss covering the stones to turn into shiny balls of light. "Wow," Sonic breathed, stopping his walk to stare.

When he looked around for Knuckles again, the echidna stood aside of the stairway and slowly Sonic walked up to him.

Knuckled pointed at the big piece of architecture he stood in front of. "This is the Emerald altar, on top of it there is a platform that held the Master Emerald… long ago. But I didn't come here for sightseeing. I came for _this_." The guardian stepped aside, revealing a part of the wall made from a much bigger stone, and as Knuckles brushed a hand over it, the moss fell off and Sonic found the stone was carved with symbols of a kind he had never seen before.

The hedgehog blinked and gave the echidna a sheepish look. "Eh… pretty. Translation, please?"

A brief smile flickered over Knuckles' face at the short hint of Sonic's usual playfulness, but when he spoke a second later the guardian's voice was deep with the importance of the ancient words. " _The servers are the seven Chaos. Chaos is power enriched by the heart. The Controller is the one to unify the chaos_."

Sonic blinked again. "I've heard this before... when I was in the past... What does it mean?"

Knuckles leisurely leaned against the rock at his side. "You tell me."

"What?"

"If you don't remember everything, I'll read it to you again…"

Sonic shook his head. "That's not it. It doesn't make sense!"

A small smirk flashed on Knuckles' lips. "These are the most important words on this island, Sonic. Every one of them was thought over very thoroughly before being written and has a very important meaning."

Sonic folded his arms. " _Hello-ho_? Just in case you forgot: I'm no freaking echidna philosopher!"

"Think about it. It won't help much if I try explaining." Casually Knuckles sat down on the steps of the stairway with his feet crossed at the ankles, and closed his eyes.

Bewildered by his behavior as much as his demands, Sonic just stood and stared at him. "You're a freak!" Much to the hedgehog's disappointment and not near as expected, the echidna just smiled.

"So are you."

Sonic gazed at him a little longer, then when he didn't move at the weird carvings, then at the echidna again. "Just what is that supposed to help me?"

"Use your brain, hedgehog. I said there is much about chaos to learn. We start with this."

"You know what, Red? You suck being a teacher. You're supposed to explain things to me, not tell me crazy old puzzles!"

"I'm not _supposed_ to _anything_." One of Knuckles' eyes opened a slit again. "It is not a puzzle. It is just something to think over."

Sonic was starting to get angry. "Now what do you want me to think over? I don't know what controller there is or who serves who or… This is stupid!"

Knuckles opened his other eye. "This is not the way to think about it. You start grouching before you start thinking. How about a deal: You take some time to really think it over, and if you get a result you tell me and I explain the rest, okay?"

Taking a deep breath, the realization he wouldn't get out of this started sinking in, and Sonic frowned. "Do I have to stay here looking at you sitting around?"

Knuckles' eyes closed again. "No."

"Then I'm off." Sonic turned around. "What tells him I'll even try thinking about his nonsense?", he muttered and accelerated out into the forest. He was... annoyed, confused, and a little angry about Knuckles' ignorance. 'Cause that was what Sonic thought the echidna was doing. Ignoring him... and his problems. For a moment Sonic had felt as if Knuckles would actually try helping him. Now he wasn't so sure anymore. All he'd done so far was constantly contradict everything Sonic said and felt, and throw some 'facts' at him that didn't serve to give him any answers to the questions and worries filling his head but adding a bunch of new ones. "Just awesome, Red. You're perfectly helpful..."

Hopping over a fallen tree in his way, Sonic was for now glad to get to be on his own again. Without un-helpful echidna wise-guys around. Just him and the wind. Running. And as he had grown used to throughout his life, with the reassuringly familiar wind delightfully caressing his face, Sonic felt his anger, and whatever else of a disturbing cocktail of emotions was there, slowly beginning to cease. At least Knuckles had not yet gotten the idea to take him and throw him into a small room full of Chaos Emeralds and see if he turned into a monster or not.

What didn't mean he wouldn't.

* * *

Sonic was already running a few miles away when Knuckles looked after him, the sharp wind left by the hedgehog's sudden departure still tugging on his long spines. The echidna smiled and answered Sonic's question although it certainly had not been meant for him. "You're curious, hedgehog."

The guardian shook his head. He wasn't sure how far this would get him, but he willing to try and force Sonic to think for once. To be honest, Knuckles didn't think of the hedgehog as stupid; quite the opposite, he even considered him rather intelligent. Sonic learned and understood quickly, a fact giving Knuckles some hope now... No, the problem with Sonic wasn't a lack of intelligence. It was that the blue hedgehog never seemed able to pay attention to anything for long. Always restless, he wasn't finished with one thing before having started two others. Knuckles didn't know if this hyperactivity was just really in Sonic's nature or if at least a part of it was a result of having grown up fighting, in the middle of a war. Probably it was a mixture of both.

Slowly Knuckels closed his eyes again, Sonic having for long disappeared from sight anyway. It seemed one thing was for sure about the blue hedgehog. He seemed the most comfortable running around. Knuckles knew from experience when Sonic had something on his mind, troubles, needed to think, he ran. The last run of that kind had brought Sonic to the decision to go with Knuckles' idea. He'd decided to face his fears, and Knuckles respected him for that. The old philosophers said: 'No warrior is without fear, but he who overcomes it is a real warrior'; and Knuckles could always find respect for genuine bravery.

Anyways, if Sonic thought best on his feet... fine. Knuckles couldn't care less. Let him run then. As long as the hedgehog was gone, trying to find out something about the 'stupid puzzle', Knuckles was given some time to consider his next steps.

* * *

"Doctor Robotnik?" Grimer carefully poked his head through the door; interrupting his boss during some kind of important thing was a crime, and he didn't want to experience the punishment an enraged Robotnik put upon him.

The large chair at the desk swung round so its occupant could face the visitor. "What is it, Grimer?"

"I am to inform you Master that the first in the series of battleships is leaving the assembly today," the green skinned thin man delivered his message, now fully stepping through the door that automatically closed behind him.

A grin grew on Robotnik's face. "Brilliant. Wonderful. Prepare everything; I am going to examine this masterpiece of engineering immediately!"

"Of course, Sir." The assistant nodded eagerly. "There is just one more thing."

"What is it?", Robotnik snapped, and Grimer was glad it was good news he had to tell him for once.

"The new model of infiltration robot is also making progress," he said, fingering his white coat. "The units will be available as soon as you need their services."

The broad grin returned to Robotnik's features. "Very good, Grimer. They all contain the new model of small bombs?"

"Of course, Sir." The green-skinned nodded again.

"Excellent!", Robotnik exclaimed, standing up and pounding his right fist in his left palm. "This plan can't fail. As soon as these fools of fishy creatures have served my plans and wiped these filthy little pests off this planet's surface, I'm going to send them right after the rest! Then, Mobius will be mine, the Chaos Emeralds will be mine, and I will be the ruler of everything!"

"But Sir," Grimer dared to interject, "You promised me a piece of land to myself, for my good services. Just a tiny bit, Sir, of course…"

"I have not forgotten my promise," Robotnik nodded. "If you prove yourself loyal through this important operation, you will be liberally paid."

"Thank you, Sir, thank you!" Grimer turned to the door. "I will prepare everything now so you can visit the assembly, Master Robotnik!"

Robotnik stroked his moustache as he watched his assistant exit in a hurry to fulfil his wishes. "Fool," he mumbled.

* * *

It was almost one hour later when Knuckles looked up as a strong gust ripped on him. In front of him stood Sonic, not near to being out of breath, but a strained expression on his face. "Care to listen?", the hedgehog asked, starting to bounce on the balls of his feet.

Slightly annoyed by the fact he had to nod his head continuously to be able to look at him, Knuckles agreed anyway, secretly glad his plan seemed to have worked and Sonic had thought about things. "Shoot."

"The 'seven' is the seven Chaos Emeralds."

Knuckles forced himself not to grin at the hedgehog's look. "Yes."

"Then there is the 'Controller', and that is the one they serve," Sonic continued, starting to look actually exited now.

Knuckles nodded. "Yes."

"The controller is the Master Emerald."

"Yes… and.. no."

Sonic's face fell, his ears flattened, and Knuckles now forcefully had to fight off a laugh at the miserable look his guest gave. "Now what? Yes or no?"

_Alright, Knuckles. You'll have to explain it now... He wants to know more. Out of himself. You have him._ "Could you stop hopping?"

"Yes… and… no," Sonic mimicked, a grin spreading on his face.

"Funny, hedgehog," Knuckles groaned. "Could you or not?"

"Yes, I could, but no, I won't," Sonic grinned broader. "Am I annoying you?"

"Yes," the echidna grumbled.

Sonic looked down on him and stuck out his tongue. "Good."

Knuckles took a deep breath. _Don't punch him now_ , he begged himself, _you're just starting to make progress…_

"Knuckles?" Sonic's smile was pure innocence.

Pretending more interest in his feet than the hedgehog, staring down on his shoes as if concentrated, Knuckles kept him on tenterhooks just a little longer. "What?"

"I thought about it. How about you explaining it now?"

The echidna looked up again and bit his lip against the laugh that wanted to jump into his throat at the pleading look on the hedgehog's face. "Okay, fine. If you sit down."

Sonic flopped down onto the grass. "I'm sitting," he announced unnecessarily.

"Good." The guardian inclined his head and didn't waste any more time getting to the point. "The controller is not always and not only the Master Emerald. It is true, the Master is one controller, it always keeps the Chaos Emeralds balanced, it channels their powers. This is one way of control. It restrains the chaos; it chains them to a controlling rule."

"Rule?", Sonic echoed. "What sort of rule?"

Knuckles shrugged vaguely. "Master Emerald rule."

"Hmm," Sonic mumbled, visibly not happy with that explanation, but it was all the guardian wanted to give him. Knuckles did know more about how the Master Emerald balanced the Chaos Emeralds out, but he didn't want to let Sonic in on the details. The knowledge wouldn't help him, so Knuckles thought it would either confuse his 'chaos student' or at least be a totally needlessly broadcast secret.

Skipping on any details on the Master Emerald and its properties, the echidna continued speaking. "But there are other ways of controlling them. A controller is everyone and everything that unifies the seven fragments of chaos power the Emeralds are to one." Knuckles paused. "The Chaos Creature for example could do that. And -"

"Super Sonic," the hedgehog finished, a small shudder ruffling his spines.

Knuckles shook his head. "No. Super Sonic is the result. Just as Perfect Chaos was a result. _You_ are the channeller, Sonic. _You_ can be the controller, the one the seven chaos serve."

Sonic's features darkened and his eyes lowered to stare down on the strainedly entwined fingers of his hands. "They never served me. It was much more the other way around."

"You're forgetting something. You're forgetting the second line. Chaos is power, yes, but power _enriched by the heart_." The red guardian spoke his last words slowly and although they came out quieter than the rest of his speech, Sonic slowly looked up at him. "The Chaos Emeralds," the echidna continued, "take what is in our hearts and turn it into power. They take the strongest of emotions we feel. In case of the Chaos Creature, it was sadness and hate. In case of Super Sonic... rage and fear."

Sonic blinked slowly; once, twice. "Super Sonic is not just a crazy part of me going outta control. He could survive separated from me, as a single… _thing_ , you remember? And he might as well be still… in here…" The blue hedgehog pointed at his forehead.

"You have to understand this, Sonic. Super is… like an incarnation of the negative energy the Chaos Emeralds contain having taken control of your body. With enough chaos power stored, he could exist without you, but not forever. If he hadn't gotten fresh chaos energy he would have just stopped to exist." Knuckles looked Sonic over for a moment, seeking a way to put some emphasis into his next words. "If you learn to control yourself, there is no place for the Emeralds to generate a separate being into you."

Sonic frowned, disbelief written all over his face. "You mean… I could… _kill that beast forever_?" He merely whispered the last words.

The guardian nodded. "Yes. You can, and you're the only one who can, but I can show you the way."

Sonic tilted his head, a little, fragile sense of eagerness in his green eyes at having heard Knuckles' last words. "What's that way?"

"Oh, you gotta learn to control both the powers and yourself. Don't think it's gonna work anything like fast." Knuckles shifted. "We'll start with the second point… for I guess it's a little easier. You need to learn letting things go. Being scared and angry is not the way to control."

Doubtfully Sonic quirked an eye ridge. "How can I do this now if I never could before?"

"You need to know the powers, Sonic, you cannot expect to get in control of anything you're not familiar with."

"I know chaos, Knuckles," Sonic contradicted.

Knuckles shook his head. "No. But you will. Wait here." He stood up and slowly walked away, not looking if Sonic did wait or not.

* * *

Out of pure boredom Sonic had started exploring the ruins of the temple, first of all looking at all the pillars, the fallen ones as much as those still standing, trying to imagine how the place had looked when all the buildings had been brand new… thousands of years ago.

Finally he had ended up climbing the stairs and now he stood in front of a low shrine, the shape of the dent carved into the stone clearly implying what was supposed to be put there and for a moment Sonic thought it would be an imposing sight having the Master Emerald overlooking the clearing and the forest around from up here.

The hedgehog hopped up onto the altar's very top and shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked out across the island, standing on the tips of his toes to get the farthest view.

"When I said 'wait here' I did not ask for you to stand on sacred places."

Sonic jumped at Knuckles' voice and span round, finding the echidna standing right behind him, silently appeared out of nowhere, but in spite of his words, the guardian didn't look angry.

"You didn't say I had to sit around while you went who knows where," Sonic grumbled back at him, still standing on top of the stone pedestal.

"No. I will make sure I do it next time." Knuckles gestured and something about his gaze told Sonic to step down now. The echidna nodded and pointed at the stairway. "After you."

Sonic turned over his shoulder as he walked down the stairs, by nature sure of his steps and not worrying about falling down the treads. "Where've you been?"

He expected some sort of cryptic reply or the comment to mind his own business, but Knuckles' answer came directly. "Hidden Palace."

Sonic swallowed. "And? What did you do there?"

Having reached the bottom of the big shrine, the echidna gestured to the ground. "Sit down."

"Again?", Sonic mumbled, but leaned against one of the rocks and let himself slide down. "Now what did you do there?"

"I got this." Knuckles sat across of the hedgehog and held his right fist out at him, and when he opened it revealed the green Chaos Emerald resting on his palm.

Sonic would have backed away if it wouldn't have been for the wall behind him. "Ah great…"

"Don't worry, one Emerald is too weak to induce any sort of transformation, and I will not leave you alone with it. I sense the Master's control. _Always_. On instinct. I will know when something happens _before_ it does." Knuckles' violet eyes locked with Sonic's greens. "I just want you to hold it now."

Feeling the bewilderment return all the way, Sonic stared at him and his brow wrinkled. "Hold it? What should that help, Red?"

"It's like… meditating. Before we can go on about any attempt using the Emeralds and their powers you need to practice letting things go even with that powers around." Knuckles held the Emerald closer to Sonic. "I chose the green one, for it is the most serene of them, the calmest. It holds the power of life. It will not harm you."

Sonic just stared at the green gemstone, seeming small compared to Knuckles' big hand. The beams of sunlight broke on the edges of the crystal to a blinding contrast against the continuous glow of the stone itself. Even just sitting and watching, Sonic could feel a twinge at his nerves.

Slowly he dared stretching a hand out at it, bringing just the tip of his index finger into touch with the glazing gem. The moment he made contact, even through the layer of his glove's fabric, a short jolt – more guessed than truly consciously felt – ran from his finger through him and the glow of the Emerald pulsed up.

With a gasp Sonic withdrew his hand. "What was that?"

Knuckles tilted his head, giving a small nod towards the powerful stone. "It knows the channellers; it recognizes them."

"It freaking _WHAT_?"

Knuckles took a slow breath. "Sonic. You got the, well, physical requirements to interact with chaos energy. A simple little reaction is to be expected."

"I – what?"

Knuckles sighed. "You got a link to chaos, Sonic. You've always had. I guess the few people who are like that are born that way. And it isn't a bad thing. Have you ever thought about why you are the only person we know capable of moving along a line of rings, even through mid-air or upwards? Defying gravity?"

Sonic felt another frown form on his brow. "The light speed dash? I could do this only because of these new shoes I got."

Knuckles suddenly grinned. "So… If I wore these shoes I could do it as well you think?"

Sonic shrugged. He'd never considered the concept before. The ring dash worked, and it was practical... "No idea. We could try it out…"

"Maybe. But we don't need to; I can already tell you the result. Besides the fact your shoes most likely don't fit my feet, the effect won't work on me. To me rings do what they do to everybody else: Heal injuries, and that's it."

"But... you said you use the Master Emerald. It's also chaos energy, just as you claim the rings are…" Sonic cocked his head aside. _Now find a good explanation to THAT, smarty._

Knuckles shook his head, replying to what Sonic had thought to be a good comeback with a simple sentence. "It's not the same sort of it."

"But rings also heal _me_." Stubbornly the blue hedgehog folded his arms.

"Sure... but you can use more of their powers. For example for that light speed dash move of yours." Knuckles looked down onto the small stone in his hand. "You gotta accept this, Sonic, it's a part of what you are."

"But... I held Emeralds before; none of them ever gave me that sort of a... whatever..." He grimaced throwing another short enough glare at the crystal on Knuckles' palm.

"What you had were not complete Chaos Emeralds but fragments, Emeralds torn in half. The other halves were always here on the floating island. When Robotnik got them from you and came here with me-"

Sonic snorted. "Aren't you forgetting something? You stole them from me, because you'd let that Egghead outsmart you!"

Knuckles' facial muscles twitched with something Sonic would have almost called shame. "I am not forgetting it, hedgehog. I will make sure I never will," he said a lot quieter than he'd been speaking before. A few awkward moments passed until the guardian continued, the familiar, somewhat casual seriousness back in his tone and features. "Everything you guys experienced about these Emerald halves, like them swallowing up evil, being stabilized by low temperatures and all that... was results of chaos' internal powers dragging them here, but never strong enough to succeed with it. What you held for some time wasn't truly Chaos Emeralds. The half of an Emerald has the power of a few dozen rings; it's gravely weakened by being incomplete."

"Did a lot of strange stuff for 'a few dozen rings' if you ask me," Sonic noticed, not sure if he believed Knuckles. "Robotnik getting his hands on the halves was dangerous enough."

"Robotnik knew they were splintered when he came here the first time. I think he searched for the other parts and found Angel Island that way. I don't think he expected much use from the things you had then." Knuckles shrugged. "Any more questions?"

Sonic slowly shook his head. "Not now, thanks," he grimaced.

The red echidna nodded. "Fine. Now are we gonna try this here out?"

For a moment Sonic just kept staring at the echidna holding the shining gemstone out at him again, then back down on the Chaos Emerald. Best he carried through with this now… _No way back anymore, right?_ He reached again, winced once more at the feel of sudden energy at the contact, but kept his hold and found it ease away within a matter of seconds. Cautiously the hedgehog took the crystal with both hands.

"Now just relax," Knuckles said quietly. "You're tense like a catapult ready to shoot."

"Ah, am I?", Sonic snapped, sharper than intended. "What do you expect I think with that thing here in my hands?"

"Stop thinking! You have to feel."

"Great plan, Red," the hedgehog growled, not noticing the slight pulsing of light from the Emerald in his hands as he glared at Knuckles.

Today somehow utterly immune to Sonic's moods, the echidna just looked at him. "I mean it. Close your eyes, try not to think of anything in particular."

"Hmm," Sonic grumbled quietly to himself, but tried to calm himself and leaned back against the rock. How does one _not_ think of anything? Was that even _possible_?

Still, 'no way out of this' was still applicable; and so Sonic sat, and breathed, and tried to think nothing, no matter how impossible he thought that was. After a while everything he heard were the sounds of his own breathing and the tiny sound of Knuckles' that claimed the guardian's presence. The warm beams of Angel Island's summer sun were starting to succeed diving their warmth through Sonic's skin and fur into his muscles, and together with the fact that nothing bad had happened yet they were easing a slight relaxation into the hedgehog.

The small crystal in his right palm was not as hard as it looked, its glazed surface feeling smooth and almost soft, and while Sonic began to lose some of his nervousness he noticed the strange form of warmth radiating from it.

Hesitantly his fingers closed a little around the Emerald, fingertips feeling over the brilliant shape testing its edges, while his mind cautiously sensed the small pulsing echo of the energy the stone held within. Or consisted of. Or something in between these options. Feeling this energy, Sonic found himself inwardly edging away from it at first. Somewhere in the very back of his mind, he knew he'd felt it before. For a small second just this sensation might have been there before it had pulled him down into mindless horror.

This time it didn't. It was still there, unchanged, softly lying in his hand, and even though more than willing to avoid it, _fearing_ it, he found himself wanting to keep it right there, but still that painful, insane craving for it didn't come over him. Slowly Sonic's concerns were fading away under the warmth of the sun that soothed his strained body in spite of himself, and his thoughts started melting like ice in the Emerald's warmth, drop by drop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With regard to Knuckles' mentioning of Sonic being the only one capable of performing a ring dash, please note that at the time the story is set Shadow is still unknown of.


	5. Topological Mixing

**Topological Mixing**

His body felt heavy and his senses came back to him just slowly. His spines were pushed to the sides by the way his back leaned against the rock behind him, the pressure having forced his head down so his chin came to rest on his chest, and the stiffness in his neck was about to evoke a light headache. Almost reflexively his large and pliable headspikes stiffened a little, but the subtle movement was sufficient to ease both the stiff feeling and the heaviness. Sonic's eyes flicked open and he squinted in dazed disorientation, trying to remember what was going on. It took a few seconds for the memories of the Chaos Emerald experiment to kick in, but then they did and the hedgehog sat up straight, with a jolt pushing away from the rock he'd been leaned against. "What did I do!?"

"Sonic."

The soft word fell almost unnoticed, the combination of _Chaos Emerald_ and his apparent black out washing a fresh wave of panic through Sonic's body. Hastily the blue hedgehog cast a glance around, already expecting to find something burning, in pieces or... in some other way _destroyed_. It wouldn't be the first time he'd...

Sonic's gaze stopped on Knuckles, sitting facing him, and he relaxed a little at finding the echidna unharmed. Knuckles' amethyst eyes calmly met Sonic's and the guardian tilted his head, seeming much more amused than anything else. "You didn't truly understand the idea of meditation, did you, hedgehog?"

Still not near to having caught up on the situation, Sonic blinked and stared at the red echidna. "What?"

A smirk crossed Knuckles' face. "You fell asleep. That really wasn't the idea, but…" Knuckles shrugged. "I wanted you to relax in presence of an Emerald and I would say you learned today's lesson."

"I…" Sonic stopped and looked down onto his hand. The green crystal was still lying in his open palm, slightly glowing the same way it had when Knuckles had handed it to him, but the light seemed to have lost its ability to send shudders down his spine. At least for now…

"Do you give it back to me so I can bring it to the others again?", Knuckles' question interrupted Sonic's speechless surprise.

"Didn't you want to teach me about those?", Sonic wondered, but passed the Chaos Emerald to the echidna.

"I said already, you learned today's lesson, it's enough for now." Knuckles stood up. "Go enjoy yourself, but try not to fall into the craters or something."

Sonic stared after the guardian as he walked off over the meadow and disappeared between the first trees of the next forest. It took almost a minute until his brain had somewhat processed the events and another one until Sonic could at least partly shrug them off. Slowly the hedgehog got to his feet and strolled in the opposite direction Knuckles had taken, deep in thought.

* * *

Pre-noon of the next day found the unlikely pair in the same place again. Knuckles seemed to have found the clearing Sonic had spent the night without problems, making the hedgehog wonder a little if the echidna was psychic and had some weird guardian-of-the-Master-Emerald way of tracking him down.

Yesterday's surprising lack of horrible events had put Sonic's mind remarkably more at ease, a good deal of undisturbed sleep had done the rest and he could feel a sense of curiosity for what Knuckles was going to pull off next. "And? Are you going to try teaching me that meditation thing again?" Sonic grinned and folded his arms.

Knuckles shook his head, the deadpan more than evident in his voice. "The last time wasn't that promising I'd be overly eager to try."

Sonic's grin broadened. "You sounded different yesterday."

The echidna shrugged. "Did I?" He looked Sonic up and down. "No, I thought about it a little and decided to try something that's maybe more fitting your style."

"So? Are we gonna do something mega cool?"

Now the echidna was looking rather weird; one eyebrow quirked, a half frown on his face and his lips cast in what wasn't quite a smirk but not quite anything else either. "That depends on what you think is _'mega cool'_." He reached for a bag he wore over his shoulder and pulled out another Chaos Emerald; this one a shade of royal blue almost matching Sonic's fur and quills.

"At least the color _is_ cool," the hedgehog commented.

"The dark blue Emerald holds the power of speed," Knuckles said neutrally, completely ignoring the remark.

Sonic's eyes widened. "You're kidding me."

Nonchalance darted over the echidna's face. "No."

Sonic ran a hand through his spikes. "Maybe it's that all cool, fast things are blue. Like me!"

The guardian frowned at him, violet eyes piercing.

"What?", the hedgehog queried when the gaze got a little too lengthy for his liking.

"I just contemplated the idea of your abnormal speed and your bright blue fur not being coincidence. Just think of the blue speed-type chao..." Knuckles still looked overly thoughtful. "Probably it's more of a chaotic gift than you think."

Sonic stared at Knuckles, then at the blue stone the echidna still held and back at Knuckles. "Do you think so?"

Knuckles shrugged. "It's a theory, nothing more. Here – catch!"

It was reflex that let Sonic's hand rush forwards and snatch the blue gemstone as it was thrown at him. The second he caught it, he stiffened in confusion and stared down on it. "It… didn't do it…"

"Didn't do what?"

Sonic lifted his gaze back up at Knuckles. "It didn't make that buzz feeling like the last one did."

Knuckles cocked an eye ridge. "You don't feel its power?"

Sonic let his fingertips trace along the brilliants sides. "That's not it… It doesn't feel so strange… It is as if I… as if it was… _familiar_ …?"

"Okay." The red guardian gave him a nod that not quite helped to reassure him or ease the shock and confusion. Not seeming to notice Sonic's bewildered state, Knuckles continued. "Now you take it and go for a run."

Sonic's jaw dropped. Now that was really too much for him. "A – run…?"

"Yes. You need to slowly learn tapping into the powers. Being all still and concentrate is something you are not used to and therefore it demands a lot of you already . So I figured it's better to start with something you know, are comfortable about and like doing." Knuckles pointed at the cobalt stone. "Go, run and try to use it to increase your speed."

"How do I do that?" Sonic knew he still looked rather dumb.

Knuckles shrugged. "Feel its power, hedgehog. Find out yourself."

Sonic frowned at him, but Knuckles didn't seem to plan giving further helpful or not information, so the hedgehog glanced down on the Chaos Emerald. "Maybe you turn out being a speed booster." The stone just twinkled at him and a hesitant smile tugged on Sonic's lips. "Well, seems there's just one way to find out, huh?"

He took a deep breath, fisted his right hand tightly around the gemstone, bent his knees into a slight crouch, released his breath again and pushed off.

It needed just the well-known time of a few seconds for the wind about his ears to reach the loudness of storm and get strong enough to force his headspines to slip into a streamlined shape. At the same time Sonic's arms couldn't hold up with the speed of his feet and he let them drop to his side for increased stability.

Without any planned track Sonic just tore through Angel Island's jungles, along the tiny paths Knuckles had shown him. Just a minute after he'd started, the hedgehog felt his thoughts beginning to flow freely in his head, but nothing about them rushed or strained anymore. He really did think best on his feet.

His thumb moved over the surface of the crystal he carried. _Okay now, how do you work? Where's that speed boost button?_

Although his pondering seemed nothing like appropriate treatment of magical gems, Sonic felt a sudden small pulse within the Emerald. He was so startled about it and focussed so much on trying to get something out of it, he would have almost crashed into a couple of trees. Giving a yelp swerving out of their way, the hedgehog turned to get out onto on of the plains.

With long blades of grass caressing his legs, the blue hedgehog felt into the Chaos Emerald again, concentrating. _Come on, go faster…_ His green eyes narrowed. _Faster. Go. Now._

And suddenly the world seemed to tunnel around him, the second sonic boom within a few minutes tearing at his body shattering all limits that had existed before. Sonic grinned. He was starting to like the idea. _This is going to be fun._

* * *

"So you have found out nothing of help yet?" Knuckles looked down onto his radio.

Thousands of miles away, Porker Lewis shook his head at the camera that transported the picture all the way onto Knuckles' screen. "Tails and me are doing our best. We've locked all of our antennas at the portal ring in the stratosphere. If there is anything to hear again, we're sure to be eavesdropping, but everything is silent so far." The pig shrugged as if it was his fault and he needed to apologize. "How's it going up there?"

"I think we might be starting to make progress." The echidna tipped his head aside at hearing the tenth sonic bang today. He should have told the freaking hedgehog not to run by here all the time... "He didn't freak out completely yet. I'm trying to get him onto the positive side of the energy. Right now that seems to work alright. As it sounds."

Porker's look on the screen became puzzled. "As it sounds?", he echoed.

Knuckles lifted the radio set up, turned the microphone louder so that Porker could hear what he heard. "Whooooo-hoooooooo! - BANG!"

_This was the eleventh_ , Knuckles thought, starting to get annoyed. Everytime the hedgehog passed somewhere near to him the shockwave attempted smashing his eardrums… The echidna made a mental note to himself to prohibit supersonic speeds on his island.

"Just what the hell are you doing up there?", Porker asked baffled.

Knuckles turned the microphone settings back to normal before answering. "He's running. It's a long story."

"Oohh.. okay…"

The echidna was about to start explaining his intentions, when the faint yelps of delight suddenly were gone. "Whaaaa-" Silence.

Knuckles winced. _Can't that idiot look where he's going…_ "Excuse me, Porker, I gotta save the stupid hedgehog." He dropped the radio and hurried over to where he was quite sure to find his crazy guest.

* * *

"Knuckles?" Porker stared at the screen, knocking his fingers against the loudspeakers, but the screen stayed black and no sound was heard. Up on Angel Island, the echidna had cut off the transmission. Porker Lewis blinked. "He didn't even say bye…"

"Who didn't say bye?", Amy's voice came from behind.

Porker turned around to find the pink girl and Tails entering the room. "Knuckles," he answered her question, nodding in greeting.

Amy waved more cheerfully than necessary and Tails nodded back. "You talked to him?", the young fox asked curiously. "How are they doing up there?"

Porker shrugged. "I'm not too sure… Knuckles said they were making progress. Sonic was running around as Knuckles told me… and then something happened and Knuckles said he'd have to go save Sonic…"

Amy dropped onto a chair next to Porker, crossing her legs at the knees. "Just what are those two doing to each other?"

"No idea." The pig shook his head.

Tails jumped to sit on the desk. "If Knuckles said they're fine it'll be okay."

Porker nodded warily. "So, what brings you here?", he asked, changing the topic.

Amy smiled. "I had an idea."

"WE had an idea," Tails corrected, looking reproachful.

"Of course." Amy giggled and turned back to the pig. "You said if Sonic can destroy that portal, it'll close the gap between the dimensions, right?"

"Yes."

"But," Tails took over, "he needs to destroy it WHILE it is being open, right?"

Porker nodded. "Yes…?"

"So, depending on how long smashing the thing takes… a lot of Drakon ships can come in already. Plus Robotnik's robot armies." Amy folded her arms. "We don't know what those ships are capable of… they might be out of Sonic's reach before he's getting the time dealing with them."

"So we figured," Tails continued, "we need our own troops to catch those enemies. Sonic needs all the backup he can get."

Porker nodded again. "You say we have to enlist some allies."

"Yes." Amy smiled.

"Okay, any ideas yet?" Porker looked between his friends.

"I thought of Sab," Tails said. "I've worked together with her and Sol before. I think they are the only survivors of the Flock, but they are experienced fighters and could be of help."

"The group from the Chemical Plant Zone?" Porker frowned. "I've never met those guys. They're pretty stealthy it seems."

Tails shrugged. "No matter. I've found them before and I'll find them again. I guess Sab is okay if I ask her for help. We're friends kinda."

"And we could try convincing Captain Plunder and his group of pirates," Amy suggested," they've helped Sonic out before…"

Porker frowned. "We've had a lot of trouble with them. They've stolen our Emeralds, they tried stealing treasure from Angel Island… they are not anything like trustworthy…"

"We're in for one of Mobius' biggest battles," Amy pointed out. "We can't act egoistic. None of us. Not even the pirates. We once convinced them. We just have to do that again."

Doubtfully Porker regarded the girl. "You have a point," he admitted. "I just hope you can get Plunder to see it too…"

Amy smiled, looking at him past her eyelashes. "We _will_ get the pirates to join us."

Suspiciously Porker looked at her. "What do you mean – _we_?"

"Tails knows the Chemical Plant gang better than the two of us, so it'll be best if he goes there. So… do you think I'll go to the pirates all alone?" She smiled sweetly.

Porker felt the blood drain from his face. "You… don't mean that…"

* * *

When Knuckles rounded one of the ambient hills, he found he had been right. He almost stumbled over the torn loose ropes that activated one of his best hidden traps, and from that on just needed to follow the scrapes of sliding Sonic had left on the ground - after tripping over aforementioned ropes - that led him directly to the second part of the trap.

He stepped to the edge of the no longer hidden hole in the ground and looked down. Two meters lower, sharply pointed wooden pickets stuck out of the ground, covering the bottom of the den in several parallel lines. A few at the opposite end of the fosse were broken in half and snapped off. The steep wall of earth limiting the trap hole showed a remarkable bump where the high speed hedgehog had smashed into it. Sonic lay kipped against the wall with feet up and head down, still half curled up, quills seemingly stuck in the earth.

Knuckles cleared his throat. "Sonic? You alright?"

"Ow..."

The echidna rounded the hole and swiftly climbed down, carefully watching the wooden spikes when dropping to the ground aside of the hedgehog. "Can you stand up?"

"My head hurts," Sonic mumbled, squinting up at the echidna, and frowned. "You're upside-down, Red…"

Knuckles shook his head. "No. You are. Get up, but watch out for the spikes."

Sonic struggled a second in place before managing to roll over. Hunkering on the ground, he brushed a hand over his quills. "Yeah… didn't take that too well…"

"What?"

"The spikes."

"Err… Forget it." The guardian shook his head at the hedgehog. "Nothing broken?"

"I don't think so," Sonic replied, trying to work the dirt out of his fur. "Just what's it with the weird hole in the ground?"

"Umm. A trap?"

Sonic looked up at Knuckles, blinked, and took a real look around now. Emerald eyes widened first in confusion and a second later in light shock, and the hedgehog stretched out a slightly shaking hand to point at the lines of deadly spikes when he realized what he had just narrowly missed there. "What the hell is _that_ for?"

Knuckles uncomfortably shifted his weight between his feet. "I already said... it's a trap. A trap is for catching intruders…"

Now Sonic's eyes narrowed, the green in them sharpening. "Am I intruding your precious island, Red?"

"Um, no?"

"You could have killed me with these things! Why didn't you warn me?!", the hedgehog demanded glaring at Knuckles, voice dropping a little deeper, clearly indicating he was pretty angry.

"Do you want me to put up signs everywhere?! People, watch out for the hidden traps?!", Knuckles snapped back. "This is not the idea behind putting up traps. They are a means of security to prevent thieves from taking the Emeralds."

"I am not intruding," Sonic growled, "You could have just said: 'Watch out there are holes in the ground with daggers in them'!"

Knuckles firmly crossed his arms, violet blazing as much as green now. "If a certain speed-crazy hedgehog could watch his step, nothing would have happened. You know how much work it'll be repairing all that?!"

"Oh yeah? If a certain echidna wasn't as paranoid and wouldn't see dangerous thieves behind every goddamn bush in his forests, he wouldn't need to dig holes for people to fall and die in!" Sonic's hands fisted at his sides.

Knuckles snorted. "I am not paranoid, you… you…"

Sonic's gaze stabbed into Knuckles' eyes. "I _what_? Come on, say it! If you dare…"

" _Dare_ , hedgehog?" The echidna took a deep breath, holding his own glare.

Sonic's voice was quiet, something between whisper and growl. "Oh, bring it on…"


	6. Allies?

**Allies?**

"What do you mean 'it's no suitable clothing'? Are you saying it doesn't suit me?" Hands on her hips, Amy Rose glared at Porker.

The pig ducked a little. "I n-never said so, Amy…"

"Then what's the matter? Tails, how do I look?" The pink hedgehog turned to the small orange fox.

Tails shrugged, casting a little interested glance over the piece of clothing in question, Amy's new dress. It was a bright shade of crimson, much tighter than the stuff she'd worn before, broadening around her hips to end just above the knees. Not quite in any age to care much about a girl's outer appearance, Tails just nodded briefly. "Not bad."

Porker took a deep breath. _Out of all things, why did Tails have to say_ that? _If a girl asks that kind of question…_

Amy's cheeks turned a color approaching the shade of her new dress. "What did you say…?"

"D-d-don't worry, Amy, you look great in it," Porker intervened, bringing up all his bravery to step between the girl and the young fox before Amy had a chance to get Tails. "It's absolutely perfect!"

The anger quickly drained from Amy's face, leaving just a tint of redness behind as she blushed, brushing her hands over the dress, righting the skirt. "You think so? You wouldn't lie to a beautiful lady, would you?"

"Never!" Porker Lewis quickly shook his head. "You look wonderful."

Amy smiled dreamily, but then her head suddenly snapped to Porker. "Then why isn't it suitable?", she demanded, the tone she'd had before sweeping back into her voice.

Porker winced. _Here we go again… Even skipping on the fact that a bright red dress doesn't go too well with pink fur and spines…_ "It's just… you know, we're going to search for the pirates... they might not be friendly… and… and..." The pig shifted, then thought he'd found the argument to get him out of this mess again. "You wouldn't want to ruin it in a fight, would you? It's brand new, after all…"

"Oh Poker, that's so thoughtful of you!" Amy smiled. "Sometimes I wish Sonic could be like that." Before Porker quite knew what happened, she had given him a tight hug.

"Amy…", the pig squeezed out, but the pink girl had already let go off him again.

"But you don't need to worry, I'll be careful. In fact, I'll wear it a lot from now on," Amy went on, "I'm sure Sonic will love me in this!"

Just out of Amy's sight, Porker watched Tails facepalm. Not mentioning that he agreed with the little fox and thought Sonic wouldn't give a damn what Amy wore at all, the pig tried one last time of reasoning. "But Amy, Sonic can't see you now…"

Amy shrugged. "He passes by many places, you never know where to meet him. Besides, some womanly charm can only help us, can't it?"

Porker sighed, swallowing the comment that the pirates certainly wouldn't care much more than Sonic. Comments generally weren't his style, he left such things to Sonic, or to Knuckles when the echidna was in the mood to give out some. Additionally, the short, half a sentence comment if Amy thought she was suitably dressed - as in _practical_ \- had backfired so badly Porker made a meta not to say anything like that anytime again.

Luckily for the pig, Amy had decided to end the pointless discussion by putting an arm around Tails and starting to walk out of the room with him. "We should be going, don't you think so?"

"Yes Amy." Porker nodded, glad to have this finished with… until he remembered where they were heading, and that he had only replaced one incarnation of evil with another one. But maybe the pirates really wouldn't be much worse than the last quarter hour…

At least Porker hoped so.

* * *

From the very beginning of the fight on, the outcome had already begun to show.

Sonic dived out of the way of a spiked fist aiming for him, the frantic jump ending in a little elegant belly landing on the grass. Quickly turning his head, the hedgehog watched Knuckles' punch go through thin air, the momentum too much for the echidna to hold his balance and the red guardian half rotated in mid-fall before flopping sideways to the ground not far from his missed opponent.

Had the quarrel started with a hot-headed exchange of words, it ended in utter silence. The insults and arguments had run out minutes ago already, the punches and kicks had stubbornly lasted a little longer.

Sonic rolled to his back, gasping, spread-eagled on the grass, stared up to the blue sky and pondered the last hour's actions.

It was clear it would end like this.

He hated to admit it, but they were even. His own moves, concerning both his dodges and attacks, were so much faster than Knuckles' reaction speed he couldn't miss. Knuckles on the other hand was so much stronger than him that once he got a grip on Sonic, after a small moment of lowered concentration or disturbance, it was hard for the hedgehog getting out of the echidna's reach; and one of Knuckles' small number of hits did the same damage as a series of Sonic's lighter ones.

Plus, Sonic found it had been a different fight than the ones he fought usually. A full force spindash hit, with the full sharpness of his quills used and scored with full speed would have cut the echidna's limbs off or something. But it was a fact that Sonic's most effective weapon for combat were his spikes. He had not used them. The wind of his running, flying kicks and fast hits, sure, but none of them was truly effective. Knuckles on the other hand… Sonic knew what those spiked fists could do. The echidna smashed _rocks_. A little blue hedgehog shouldn't have been a challenge to crunch.

They were holding back. Both. It had taken Sonic several minutes to work that out, an amount of time that seemed ridiculous for realizing something as obvious once you thought about it... He'd been angry, sure. Knuckles had been as much, but neither of them had meant to fight to the real end. He didn't hate Knuckles or something. No, he almost dared to consider him a friend, although he wasn't sure if that was a mutual thing; it was hard discerning the stoic echidna.

It had been a disagreement, a simple argument… leading to what these things had led to times and times before: a one hour fight during which not only enough blows had been exchanged to make the hedgehog feel as if he consisted of bruises more than anything else, but somehow each of them had found the chance to say everything that came to mind about the other one's annoying character traits.

It was always the same. Once the fight had gained its dynamics – and that happened incredibly _fast_ – Sonic's face wore a smirk in spite of himself and in spite of the anger he knew had to be evident in the look of his eyes, and he knew how much that smirk got on the echidna's nerves. Knuckles on the other hand, as a contrast to the seconds preceding the actual quarrel, didn't shout his retorts to the hedgehog's taunts, he growled them out between ground teeth and the tone went with the look Sonic could see in _his_ eyes, a sharp but very controlled aggression. Still, neither was out to kill the other or something. Suddenly, as he lay panting and reflecting on the matter, Sonic was stricken with an odd sense of how _crazy_ this whole thing was.

Turning his head, he shot a glance at Knuckles. The echidna was sprawled on the grass similar to him, also seeming to lack the power for more than gasping. For a moment Sonic wondered if the fight had stopped because they were finished with each other or just because they were both too exhausted to continue. Right now Knuckles looked as crappy as Sonic felt, and suddenly the hedgehog noticed his anger towards the echidna had completely subsided, and now that it had, he found most of the things he'd been doing during the past hour had been rather foolish and stupid.

"Um… Knuckles?", he started, not sure if it was the time for talk at all.

"What?", the red echidna gave back without looking at him, but the deep tone in his voice wasn't anger or annoyance any more; it was plain grogginess.

Sonic cleared his throat. "What I said about… you being-"

"Forget it, Sonic," Knuckles interrupted him. " _I_ said a lot of stuff I shouldn't have said, _you_ said a lot of stuff you shouldn't have said, and we both got good answers to it, didn't we?"

Sonic's hand slowly moved over his aching rips. "Yeah, that's for sure."

Knuckles lifted his head to look at him. "I guess all of these things needed to be cleared up on someday."

"Maybe that's really it." Sonic smiled warily. "May I say one more thing?"

Knuckles raised an eyebrow, but nodded. "After everything before it can't really change anything, so shoot."

"You look horrible now, Knux." Sonic grinned. "A real mess…"

"It's _Knuckles_ , hedgehog." The echidna frowned. "And do you really think you look much better off?"

"No." Sonic grimaced.

"See? That's what I thought." Knuckles sat up stiffly. "Come on, we'll retrieve the Chaos Emerald and I'll show you a place with fresh, cool water to get cleaned up and help with the sore spots."

"So... Peace? Just like this?" Sonic moved to crawl to his feet. "Friends now?"

Knuckles rose completely to his own feet and for a long moment just stood and looked into Sonic's sweaty, mud-stained face. Then he slowly gave a small nod. "We'll try it."

Sonic grinned. "Way to go, Knux!"

"It's _still_ Knuckles, hedgehog."

* * *

"We should have told Tails to wait a moment," Porker mumbled. "If no-one's here we're stuck in the middle of nowhere…"

"Why should no-one be here? It's their hideout, their home base." Amy Rose pointed across the small bay that lay beneath the cliff they stood on. About fifty meters below, the brightness of a white sand beach snuggled up against the dark cliffs, small waves from the bay rolling out on it giving a rhythmic sound to hear even up here. "Besides," the pink hedgehog continued, "it sure is a beautiful place. If no-one is here to negotiate, we'll have to wait for them to come home and while we do that, we can take a swim and have a wonderful day at the beach."

Porker's jaw dropped. Here they were, all on their own, forced to face a group of dangerous pirates to convince them to join forces against a common enemy… and that girl thought about a day off at the beach. "Amy… we're not here for holidays…"

The pink hedgehog turned to him. "I know. But I am allowed to enjoy the view, right?"

"Of course…" The pig gave a small nod, secretly wishing he could think about holidays too. But since he had encountered Robotnik's new scheme, he seemed haunted by the mental image of armies of battleships coming for Mobius… and now that he and Amy were heading for the pirates' headquarters, he kept seeing himself keelhauled… or thrown into shark-filled water… or something like that.

Amy seemed utterly immune to this kind of worries; the girl was already descending the tiny path winding down the cliffs to the beach, casually hopping from one foot to the other, her quills swinging with the steps and the soft breeze from the sea.

Feeling he couldn't leave her all on her own, Porker hurried to catch up with her. The path turned into a set of stairs carved into the rock leading them to the middle of the wide beach.

Amy stopped when she reached the sand and turned to Porker. "Look over there! Those huts and caves have to be it!"

The pig nodded numbly. "S-sure."

Amy tilted her head. "Aw... come on, you're not scared now, are you?"

"They're dangerous. Unscrupulous! They've thrown Tails into a pit once!"

"Tails can FLY," Amy smiled relaxedly.

"They would have thrown anybody who can't in there as well!", Porker continued. "I'm sure they had no clue that Tails could!"

"What's the matter with you?" Amy folded her arms. "We've worked together with them before. They never killed one of us."

Porker took a deep breath. _What tells you they won't do it now?_ , he thought, but swallowed the comment. Talking back to Amy was never a successful thing.

"Now come on, I'll look out for you, okay?" Amy smiled sweetly at him, drilling one of her quills between her fingers.

"Okay…" Porker nodded. "Let's get that over with."

"Right. I like you much better this way." The pink girl gave him a thumbs-up and started walking towards the huts.

The wooden buildings were cramped into gaps in the rock, concealing entrances to caves going deep into the stone. Coming closer the two freedom fighters found Jolly Roger fluttering with the soft wind on top of the center hut. Porker shuddered, his eyes unable to leave the picture of skull and crossbones moving with the breeze.

He could finally look away when they stood directly in front of the door, mostly because he couldn't see the flag anymore. The high cliff's shadow took away most of the warmth that had filled the beach on the sand and Porker shivered lightly, not entirely sure if it was the cool that made him feel chilly or the strange smell of moist wood and salt.

Amy knocked on the door. "Hello? Misters pirates? Anybody at home?"

Nothing moved on the other side of the door and Amy knocked again, harder this time. "Hello-ho?"

Porker shrugged. "No-one here. We can as well go home again…" He turned to leave, but Amy had grabbed his arm before he could get out of her reach.

"Where do you think you're going?" She grinned, still holding Porker around the elbow, and pulled on the door with her free hand.

To their both big surprise it swung open with a loud squawking noise, flooding their noses with a wave of damp reeking air from inside the room.

Amy grinned. "See? We can wait inside…" With that she dragged protesting Porker into the room.

Porker blinked to allow his eyes to get used to the dim lighting inside before daring a look round the pirates' houseroom. The small entrance had not given away the smallest idea of the dimensions of the room that lay behind. The wooden roof the two freedom fighters stood under gave way to the high ceiling of a wide cave; in front of them a few treads led down to sandy floor again; but the most unexpected thing lay in the center of the big cavern.

Lazily bobbing up and down in the middle of an almost round lake of turquoise water was the pirates' ship; sails hanging powerlessly down due to the absence of wind.

"Wow…" Amy whispered. "I wonder how they got it in here…"

Before Porker had a chance to answer, he jumped at the sound of metal scraping over metal, spun half round and –

froze, choking on his own breath as the cold sharpness of a saber's blade touched his throat and a powerful arm slipped around him with a grip of iron.

Amy shrieked. "Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

Out of one of the dark shadows around a tall, round figure stepped in front of Porker and Amy; long green cape swaying with his movements, the sound of his footsteps ghostly echoing through the room, a big hat half covering his face, allowing only a look at his long teeth and a pair of small, glittering eyes in the shadow the brim threw on his face.

"So, who do we have here? Stowaways?" Captain Plunder lifted his left arm, shifting his hat with the silver hook replacing the hand.

"If I am allowed to correct you, Capt'n," a half transparent form appearing at his side interrupted, "so far they haven't set a foot on the planks…"

"So what?" Plunder laughed wobbly, turning to the ghost. "Then they're intruders and no stowaways. They're keelhauled anyway."

"K-k-keelh-h-h…", Porker pressed out shuddering.

"Hey! We're no intruders! We came to negotiate!", Amy shouted, winding in the grip of the pirate holding her.

"Pinky's getting pert," the one behind her noticed. "How about if I tickle her a little…?" He playfully shifted his saber.

Plunder laughed again. "Alluring idea… But wait… don't we know each other?" The captain closed some of the distance to the prisoners.

Her nose wrinkling at the smell of fish coming from the pirate, Amy glared up at him. "Of course we know each other! We're the freedom fighters. You've worked with us earlier."

Captain Plunder regarded her closely. "Ah yes, now I see…" He turned to the ghost. "Remind me again… Was she the blue dude's girl now or not?"

The ghost rubbed his chin. "If I remember correctly the blue lubber said she wasn't…"

Plunder shrugged. "Whatever. But these two are blue dude's friends anyway. He'll give us all his Chaos Emeralds for them, don't you think?" He laughed, a raspy, hoarse sound that echoed through the large cave as his comrades joined in.


	7. Capture, Lostness and Colours

**Capture, 'Lostness' and Colors**

"It's not fair. He didn't even listen to us!" Amy's hands fisted around the bars of the cage hung up on one of the pirate ship's masts, swinging slightly with each of the prisoners' moves.

Three meters below, the planks of the deck were empty of people now, apart from the sole guy that lazily sat against a few wooden boxes, one of his hands holding a bottle out of which he every now and then took a gulp or two. The rest of the Sky Pirates had left… as if too party or sleep somewhere over the night neither of the Freedom Fighters could tell. In fact, still caught in the dimly lit cave it was getting hard to define what time of the day it might be… or how much time had passed since they had been quite unceremoniously dumped into this cage.

Porker was silent. Just like it wasn't fair of Captain Plunder not listening to them, it would have been unfair of him reminding Amy this whole thing had been _her_ bright idea.

"They think we're good for hostage," the pig finally noticed quietly. "They want to get Sonic to give them the Chaos Emeralds for our freedom. Or... our lives…" He swallowed dryly.

Amy turned around and slowly sat down at his side. "Sonic won't let us down."

Porker shook his head. "Don't you understand? Knuckles got the Emeralds, not Sonic. He won't just pass them over to those guys. And neither Sonic nor Knuckles _can_ give them away, even if they wanted. They need them for Sonic's training… and they need them for when Robotnik opens his portal. Sonic and Knuckles _keeping_ the Emerald right now is our only hope."

"But…" Amy wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her chin on them. "They can't leave us here…"

Porker frowned, not knowing what to say, and just watched her long eyelashes flutter. Once. Twice. Then she turned to him again, a new glitter of confidence in her eyes.

"Tails knows where we are."

Porker shook his head again. "Yes, he knows. But first, he's off to find the last of the Flock… and when he comes back he first needs to find we're missing. And then… he still needs to find us… _here_." He gestured around.

Amy blinked again. "He'll find us. He just has to!"

Porker slowly nodded. "Then let's just keep our fingers crossed that he does fast."

"Mmm," Amy mumbled, wrapping her arms tighter around herself again and rubbing over her upper arms.

"Cold?", Porker asked.

A smile of almost shame flashed on Amy's face. "Maybe the dress wasn't the best idea really…"

Porker smiled back. "It's okay I guess…" He slipped out of his leather jacket. "Here, you can have this."

Amy tilted her head. "Won't you be too cold with just that short-sleeved shirt?"

The pig shrugged. "We can take turns if you want to."

The pink hedgehog smiled. "Okay."

* * *

Sitting in the shade of a tree, the early afternoon breeze blowing through his dreadlocked spines, Knuckles closely regarded his companion. Sonic sat across of him, cross-legged on the grass, eyes closed and his bare fingers closed around the green Chaos Emerald again. Knuckles had decided to start another attempt with the hedgehog today, since yesterday's running experiment had given his student some idea what he was supposed to be looking for.

Now they sat, Sonic trying to feel into the Emerald, getting used to its vibes, and Knuckles guiding him as good as he could, giving hints and advices, telling him what to look out for, where to focus his attention. The guardian had no specific expectations yet, he didn't want Sonic to do anything with the Emerald's power. While it had worked with the blue one, each Emerald was different, and Knuckles didn't want to rush things. They were just at the stage of sharpening and training Sonic's sense for the energy; nothing more, nothing less. What they were building at the moment would be the basis for everything they could work on later, so Knuckles considered these lessons very important. He wasn't sure if Sonic understood, but he could tell the hedgehog was doing his best.

This particular fact had made Knuckles pretty satisfied with his in the beginning so reluctant guest. The past hours had started quite promising; they'd made tiny steps of progress, but all of them in the direction Knuckles was aiming for. The last twenty minutes however seemed more of a step backwards than anything else…

Sonic groaned, blue eyelids opening and revealing a pair of eyes almost matching the color of the gemstone in his hands. "I'm sorry, Knux, but whatever you want me to do, it doesn't work…"

Swallowing the comment about this new nickname Sonic seemed to have dubbed him with, Knuckles looked at him. "Well, you were on the right way not long ago."

"Yeah, yeah…" Sonic put the Chaos Emerald down on the grass between them, lifting his hands to massage his temples. "For you that's easy saying so."

Watching him sharply, Knuckles suddenly noticed how tired the hedgehog looked. "Headache?"

"Yeah, a little." Sonic's index and middle fingers still ran slow circles over his temples.

"I should have known…," Knuckles mumbled under his breath. "You know," he continued aloud, "I can at least partly say I can look inside this Emerald there, but I haven't found a way yet how the Master allows me looking inside of _you_."

"Huh?" Sonic looked puzzled.

Knuckles sighed. "You'll have to tell me if you're tired. By the time I'm able to see it it's already rather late. I know this kind of thing needs a lot of concentration; the fact it's all new to you just makes it worse. You can always say you need a break, but you'll have to say _something_ , you know…"

A slightly embarrassed smile darted over Sonic's face. "I know it sounds idiotic, but I didn't really notice I was tired until now."

"It doesn't sound idiotic." Knuckles shook his head. He knew exactly what Sonic was experiencing. Nothing about it was new to _him_. "Come on," he said, picking up the Emerald. "We'll call it a day for now and I'll get us some food. How does that sound?"

Sonic grinned. "Like the best thing you said all day."

* * *

Strong winds blowing into his face, Tails circled another time over the Chemical Plant Zone. Lone giant trees stuck their heads out of the jungle of technology, long pipes growing out of almost every piece of ground available, only interrupted by the one or other strange building.

Tails had never liked Chemical Plant. The place was a mess even from above, once you were down there it became even worse. Honestly he couldn't imagine anyone liked it at all here. Besides Robotnik… or Megamack… But no normal being at least.

He had never questioned if Sab and her team liked it here. Most likely, even through all the disgusting, stinky stuff it hosted, they felt it was their home…

Pricking a small place more or less free of obstacles, Tails pushed the Tornado's nose down and forced the biplane between the pipes and to a rough landing on a far too bouncy ground.

Climbing out of his cockpit, the little fox took a look all around, hoping to gain some orientation, before spinning his tails and lifting off to search for some trace of people's presence.

* * *

The sun was starting to set, throwing long shadows across the pipes below him. Tails dropped down to the ground and leaned on his knees. He was exhausted. Like he'd said, the whole zone was a mess… The fox hated to admit it, but he was lost. A few hours ago he had at least still known which way he'd left the Tornado… now he wasn't sure even about _that_ any longer. He might have reached the other side of the zone by now… or just ran in circles and his biplane was five minutes walktime from here, hiding behind a block or two and not saying a thing.

Tails sighed. The worst thing about being lost was you could do nothing about it. If you just started running into one direction, you'd just get even more lost than you were already… plus, he had already reached a grade of 'lostness' he didn't even now which way to choose for a panic run.

And somehow he was way too tired for running, or flying for that matter. His tails hurt from all the spinning and his stomach was growling so loud he thought it would soon grow strong enough to cause an echo from the things around.

Groggily the two-tailed fox slumped against one of the pipes sticking out of the ground, his namesakes thudding once, twice onto the slightly reeking subsoil before falling limp beside him. Tails let his head drop against the metal and another sigh rose from his throat, the sound fading into yet another angry sound from his empty stomach.

"Oh, I hate this place…", Tails mumbled. "I should have gone to the Sky Pirates instead…" _If Sonic was here he'd have searched the damn zone in no-time… or if I'd at least found the Tornado back… I could call someone on the radio_ , he thought; cerulean eyes blinking slowly in a vain attempt at fighting off tiredness.

Tails realized only that he'd fallen asleep when something touched his shoulder and he reflexively jumped backwards. Or tried to do it, finding there was a solid piece of hard material blocking the way. Giving a light, startled shriek of shock the fox scrambled backwards, just to find there was something more to restrain him.

"Hey, calm down…", someone said lightly, holding his shoulders.

"You scared him, you jerk!", a female voice added, a reproachful tone carried along.

Confused and still not sure if he was more sleepy or panicky at the moment, Tails' eyes finally flew open. It was dark all around aside of a tiny sparkle of light coming from a torch in the hand of one of the two Mobians crouched beside him. They were sheep, and Tails wouldn't believe his eyes.

"Hey, look! He's got two tails! He's the Zone Runner!", the male sheep called out now, startling Tails just further.

The female smiled. "Don't worry… Tails, right? … We're friends. You remember us, don't you?"

"But… you were killed!"

"No," the woman smiled softly, "three of us escaped. After fleeing in panic from the explosion, we came back and searched for others of the Flock, finally finding Sab and Sol. We built a few new huts hoping to live together in peace now."

"Sometimes badniks come and interrupt our peaceful life, but we still know how to deal with them." The young man clasped his right fist in his left palm and grinned.

"Don't think we're ghosts now, Tails," his companion added giggling briefly.

Tails nodded. "I guess I thought you guys were a nightmare or something…" He giggled as well now, abashed to have acted like a little child.

"Oh, I understand that," the young woman smiled again, "He's not overly careful at waking up people…" She earned an elbow from her companion at that.

The male sheep turned back to Tails. "It's not a good place to sleep outside for a little guy like you, even if you are a great hero and a Zone Runner."

"I'm not a Zone Runner. I'm just a Freedom Fighter, like you guys are," Tails corrected. Sab had created that kind of title for him, saying he was a hero travelling all of Mobius' zones to fight the enemy. Tails couldn't deny he'd liked the attention and the feeling of being called a hero, although a part of him full well knew he'd beat the Flock's archenemy mostly through sheer _luck_. It seemed none of the Flock had truly noticed that. Not even after the time that had passed since their last meeting, when Tails had though Sab and Sol were the only ones left of the group of sheep.

"We almost fell over you," the woman snapped him out of his reverie. "You know, there are not only friendly creatures around here."

"I got lost," Tails admitted. "I came here to find you guys and your place to stay at. I wanted to talk to Sab. We need help. But… I got lost here, flew around all day long and then was just tired…" A growl from his belly interrupted him. "Oh... and-"

The two sheep chuckled. "And hungry, I see," the male nodded. "Come on, we'll bring you to our village. Is your business very urgent or can it wait until tomorrow morning?"

Tails stood up. "It can wait. You don't have to wake anyone. How comes you two are still up?"

The sheep exchanged a glance and smiled. "We were just taking a moonlight walk…"

Looking up at the black sky, Tails frowned. "Moonlight?"

* * *

A night of sleep had taken care of things, and Knuckles had gotten them back to work. Once again the echidna sat in the grass, keeping a firm eye on the hedgehog as he held a Chaos Emerald out at him.

"Red," Sonic blurted out as soon as the gemstone touched his hand.

Satisfied, Knuckles smiled at his student. The hedgehog sat facing him, but nevertheless couldn't see his smile. What partly was the reason Knuckles allowed himself this sign of satisfaction.

Sonic's current disability was caused by the cloth the echidna had wrapped over his eyes for the newest training sort invented.

"You sure?", the guardian asked again.

Sonic nodded. "You don't fool me, Knux."

"Knuckles," the echidna corrected slightly annoyed and wondered for a second if Sonic knew he wouldn't do anything to him due to being morally not allowed to hurt a helpless person – a category blindfolded hedgehogs definitively belonged to... But at the moment Knuckles' content about Sonic's progress was bigger than the annoyance caused by his not stopping trait of calling him self-created nicknames instead of his actual name.

"Now tell me I got another point alright and gimme the next one," Sonic demanded with a bright grin on his face.

Without comment Knuckles took the Chaos Emerald out of Sonic's hand again and reached for the others resting on the grass around him. Briefly his hand hovered over the set of shiny gemstones, then he chose for the grey one.

Another smirk flashed on Sonic's face as he was handed the stone. "Grey."

Knuckles nodded, then remembered that Sonic couldn't see him. "Correct," he allowed. "You've gotten better than I thought."

The smirk turned into a trademark Sonic grin. "You have given me harder tasks than this."

"No. It might feel ridiculous to you, but it's very important to know the Emeralds well enough to tell which one it is without looking. The differences between them are tiny. Your task is harder than you think."

Sonic's grinning face was crossed by a tint of cockiness. "I am just better than _you_ think."

The guardian nodded, just to himself this time. Sonic didn't need to be told that; it would get to his head. "I guess you've passed another lesson," the echidna said instead.

Sonic pulled the blindfold off his eyes, blinked for a moment at the brightness of daylight, then looked at Knuckles. "You know that I won, don't you?"

Knuckles groaned. He'd almost hoped Sonic would forget it, but of course his hope was in vain. The blue hedgehog had gotten Knuckles to bet with him. If Sonic got not more than three guesses wrong out of the near hundreds they'd made in the past hours, Knuckles had to race him…

Sonic had missed just two.

The hedgehog hopped to his feet, playfully tossing the cloth at Knuckles. "Come on, you lost."

Knuckles nodded, resigning. "Alright. Wait here, I'll just get the Chaos Emeralds back to Hidden Palace. Fine?"

Sonic grinned again, tapping a foot on the grass. "I'm waaaiiiting, Knux…"

"Knuckles," the guardian grumbled and shook his head as he gathered up the small crystals, but when he turned to leave Sonic he couldn't keep a smile off his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone else remember the Flock? They appeared in Tails' mini series.


	8. Alliances

**Alliances**

Amy fell to her knees when the cage was unceremoniously dropped down to the deck. "Hey, you could do this a little more carefully, you jerks!", she complained loudly, crawling back to her feet and glaring at the two Sky Pirates who'd set the prisoners down.

"Silence!", Captain Plunder growled when another of his mates opened the door. "Come here!"

"You still haven't heard us! We came here to negotiate about teaming up against Robotnik!", Amy protested when she and Porker were dragged towards the front of the ship.

"Amy… maybe this isn't the right moment…", Porker whispered, nervously watching the pirates' actions when two of them took a hold of him and started binding him. He struggled then, but uselessly.

"Leave him alone, you…", Amy shouted, writhing in the grip of the pirate holding her.

"It is all up to you what happens to your friend…" Plunder's ghost companion grinned. "Tell us where the rest of your little party is and…"

"What do you mean, _the rest of our little party_?" Amy frowned. "At our base of course…"

Plunder's head snapped to her. "No, they're not! The blue lubber isn't home and his two tailed flying mate isn't either. Without anyone to get some goodies from, you are of no use to us. You will tell us now where your friends are."

"And if I don't?", Amy gave back.

"Then you'll watch your friend here being keelhauled now…" The captain waved at the two holding bound Porker and they lifted him without any visible strain to hold him suspended over the water.

Amy gasped. "You… can't do that! You could kill him!"

The pirate holding her leaned towards her ear. "That was the idea, cutie…"

Amy grimaced at the smell of the pirate and struggled, her elbow aiming for the guy's belly as she tried breaking free. She must have aimed well, the pirate gave a choked sound of pain and let go of her.

Whirling to dive through the lined up pirate gang, the pink hedgehog cast about for anything useful as a weapon. If she'd just had her crossbow! Without anything to defend herself, she stood no chance against all these guys!

… _. Weapon… weapon… come on…_

Her eyes lit on an oversize tool leaning against the planks the second a couple of hands reached out to grasp her. No time for any more thoughts, Amy's hands fisted around the long stick of the giant hammer the pirates had used to slam some woods into the ground to hang up stuff the evening before. It didn't matter… as long as the thing was capable of smashing _pirates_ as well…

Putting in all her strength, Amy span around, the head of her oversized melee weapon connecting with the legs of one of her persecutors who gave a howl of pain and went down, holding his limbs.

Amy stood straight again, swinging the hammer. It was lighter than it looked; sure, carrying to took all of her strength, but once it moved it seemed to lose its weight. The pink hedgehog grinned. "Don't worry, Porker, I'm coming!"

* * *

"Wow… that looks ugly," Sonic commented, gesturing towards the almost black wall of clouds approaching the Floating Island.

Knuckles just nodded as a cold gust pushed against him. The two were standing on a small cliff near the top of the center volcano; one of the places that allowed the best view over the island. Knuckles had to admit that view wasn't very promising. The clouds covered half of the sky ahead, single columns towering so high up their tops flattened out, and the dark color clearly showed there was a lot of content to be released onto whatever land was unfortunate enough to be near them.

Angel Island was near. Knuckles could sense the island's direction of movement as a slight tingle in the ground itself, as a subconsciously noticed part of the Master's energy field interfusing everything around.

"That looks like TONS of rain!", Sonic remarked, pouting. "Can't we go around it or something? You _can_ steer that island of yours, can't you?"

Knuckles gave a half nod. "Yes, I can steer the island, but no, we can't move around it."

"What?"

The guardian turned to the blue hedgehog. "Generally, the island floats without my interference by the power of the Master Emerald. The Emerald decides where it moves. I do not completely know how it decides and what causes it to choose. I know some of the criteria. For example, during the past days it slowly went lower."

Sonic raises an eyebrow. "It did?"

"Yes. It does that regularly, everytime the plants need water, the water level in Hydrocity sinks too much or the creeks would start to run dry," Knuckles explained. "It usually floats slightly above the cloud layer. Now we are slightly below. We will stay here until there has been rain to refill the island's reserves. In cases of emergency I could change this interval of course, but as the guardian it is within my task to keep everything on the island in a good condition."

Sonic was silent for a moment, thinking this over, then shrugged. "Okay, point. As a desert this would look stupid I guess."

Knuckles blinked in irritation and turned to look over to the clouds again. A bolt of lightening flashed through the dark grey structure. It looked a lot like some days to stay inside somewhere…

"Knux?", Sonic interrupted the echidna's pondering.

"Knuckles," the guardian mechanically corrected while slightly slapping Sonic across the head.

"Hey!", the blue hedgehog complained. "What was that for?"

"What do you want, hedgehog?", Knuckles asked, ignoring him.

Sonic rubbed his head, but a grin made its way to his lips. "I'm hungry."

Knuckles sighed. _Again?_ "Do you have any form of daily routine, hedgehog? You woke me this morning barely after sunrise saying you wanted breakfast. Yesterday, you went all upset when I woke you at almost midday. We just had food. You cannot possibly be hungry again."

"I'm always hungry. Always. Well, I'd get some food by myself, but you told me not to, 'cause of the poisonous stuff that grows on your freaky island…" Sonic shrugged. "Besides, did no-one ever teach you that dining is an important social activity to do with other people?"

Knuckles groaned and reached to slap the hedgehog again, but Sonic had already jumped out of the way laughing. "Come back here, hedgehog, and I'll teach _you_ about some 'social activities'…"

Sonic turned over his shoulder, spines waving in the wind, and grinned. "Catch me then!"

"Argh…"

* * *

If it hadn't been for the panicked scream, Amy would have missed the splashing sound from the front of the ship.

"Porker?", she called, head snapping away from yet another pirate being brought down by the hammer's brute force. When she got no reply, the pink hedgehog advanced towards the place she knew the suddenly way too silent pig.

"Where are we going so fast, Pinky?", a fat Sky Pirate demanded stopping in front of her, quickly joined by another one.

Amy bit her bottom lip.

" **Get** -"

The hammer swung to the right, smashing into the man's round torso.

"- **out** -"

A series of steps as though she were dancing brought Amy closer to the second opponent.

"- **of** -"

She lifted the dragging weight of her weapon off the planks to her feet, leaning backwards to balance her stand as she swung the hammer leftwards.

"- **my** -"

Earning a growl of pain, Amy pulled the hammer out of the falling body, jumping past two moaning heaps to both sides of her path.

"- **way**!"

Running up a stairway as fast as the heavy load would allow her; the pink girl reached the place she'd been standing not two minutes ago.

Captain Plunder, his ghostly friend and a third pirate were leaning over the railing wobbling with laughter. "These bubbles… hehehe…", Plunder howled.

"I wonder when he'll run outta them…", the ghost brought out, still laughing madly.

Amy gritted her teeth. "You! Get my friend back up here!", she shouted, causing the three pirates to turn around to give her a bewildered look.

"Oh, give me that, you'll just hurt yourself…" Captain Plunder grinned and reached out towards her.

"Or you will be hurt, unless you get Porker back here! Now!" A glare going from one Sky Pirate to the next, Amy lifted the hammer above her head.

* * *

Tails dangled his legs on the table he sat on, watching Sab pace the room. Back and forth, back and forth, back and-

"I'm not sure if we can be of help, Tails," she said abruptly stopping to whirl around and face him. "It has been quite a while since we've fought. We all were tired of war. We've lost too many friends already."

"Don't you see? Robotnik has teamed up with the Drakon Empire. They're very powerful, and all of them want Mobius. Robotnik wants to make it a robotized junkyard and the Drakons are after the chaos energy and do whatever it will need to get their hands on it!" Tails jumped off the table, namesakes twirling nervously. "We know they've destroyed a lot of things in the past already just to get access to the Chaos Emeralds. Neither Robotnik nor his allies will care for Mobius' civilization!"

Sol stood up from where he'd been sitting on a chair to lay a hand on Tails' shoulder. "You've told us enough already about how serious the situation is, and we all understand it. We just have to think through the decision very well, you understand that?"

Tails forced himself to nod.

"Leave us alone for a moment and we'll discuss everything, okay?", Sab said, stepping beside her partner.

Tails nodded again and slowly walked to the door. Once outside the hut, the young fox now started pacing as well. Suddenly he understood why Sonic did these things. Why Sonic walked circles in rooms everytime he was forced to wait for something. Usually, Tails was very patient. Well, at least a lot more patient than his big bro. But right now as it had turned out a small part of the Flock still existed, that he suddenly saw the opportunity to get more allies than he'd originally dared to hope he'd get, he couldn't wait for them to think over every piece of information he'd given them. Tails wanted an answer, and he wanted it _now_.

Unfortunately for the fox, the Flock took their time. It felt like forever until the door opened again and Sol gestured for Tails to come back inside.

Anxiously the two-tailed fox looked between the group. They exchanged glances, and Sab took a slow breath before speaking. "You got an alliance, Tails."

Now Tails could hardly hold back jumping about. He had his job done. A first step.

* * *

"Faster!" Amy grinned devilishly down on Captain Plunder lying flat on the planks of his ship. "This thing is heavy and I'm sure you don't want me to drop it on you… _again_ …"

Defeatedly Plunder lifted his head halfway. "You heard her! Hurry up!"

"Yeah… her friend could lose some weight, you know…", one of the other pirates noticed leaning into a rope running over the railing.

"Stop insulting my friends or I'll get mad at you!", Amy called over at him.

"Oh my…", the pirate muttered and pulled harder. A few moments later a spluttering Porker Lewis was put down on the deck, untied and put on his feet. "You fine, mate?"

The pig coughed. "I… guess so…", he gasped.

"Good!", Captain Plunder remarked. "Then tell the pink lady here to put that hammer down!"

"I'm not through with you yet…" Amy smiled.

"What else do you want?", the Sky Pirate captain groaned.

"A contract. You join us to fight off Robotnik's newest scheme."

Plunder grimaced. "What can we get out of that contract?"

"Save your home planet," Amy said simply.

The pirate frowned. "Nothing else…?"

"Oh, you know, this hammer is pretty heavy, my arms are hurting and I could just happen to accidentally drop it on your head…" The pink hedgehog smiled sweetly.

Plunder sweatdropped. "Okay. Everybody heard it. These mates got a contract with us."

Amy stepped away from him and lowered the hammer to lean onto it. "Clever boys."

While the Sky Pirates moved away from her as fast as possible without making it look like too much of an escape, Porker walked towards Amy, staring between her and the retreating 'new allies'. "What did you do, Amy?"

"Oh, I told them my opinion…" The girl giggled. "You know, I could get used to this form of combat…"

Porker gaped at the large hammer. "How could you hold it for so long?"

Amy grimaced and massaged her arms. "I'm wondering about that myself…but… it's way more fun fighting than with a crossbow… it's just too heavy… maybe… I could get myself a lighter one. And then –"

"Then we'll all have to hide from you once you get mad," Porker finished for her.

Amy laughed. "You better be."

"Amy? Thank you."

"You're welcome." She smiled. "I guess we can head home now. Mission accomplished."

Porker nodded. "Yes. All turned out well in the end, but I gotta admit I'll be happy to be out of here again."

"Sure you are." Amy leaned the hammer against the railing. "You know what? There is just one bad thing about this…"

"Um… I guess I'll get over being almost killed by a crazed set of Sky Pirates…" Porker Lewis tried a smile.

"No, I meant that Sonic didn't see me dealing with all these guys, Silly!" Amy giggled.

"Ah. Sure." Porker shook his head and turned to leave the ship.

"You are leaving already, mates?", Captain Plunder interjected before the two freedom fighters could get far, creeping back out of his hideout at seeing Amy had put away that dreadful thing of a hammer.

"We got a lot of things to prepare, yes." Porker frowned. "You aren't the most hospitable folks anyway, are you?", he added scoffing.

"Oh, no bad feelings, lil' mate! We're sailing on the same wind now!" Plunder tipped the brim of his hat with his hand-replacing hook. "We'll bring you home."

Amy and Porker exchanged a glance, and the pink girl looked up at the Captain strictly. "No tricks."

Plunder quickly shook his head. "We wouldn't betray you, Milady!"

Porker smiled inwardly. Two more good things… the pirates had learned some manners… and he would see how they got their flying ship out of this cave… The pig smiled.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this, people, is how Amy got her hammer. Well, at least that's my theory on it. ;)


	9. Storm

**Storm**

"Guys?" Porker poked his head through the kitchen door.

"Oh, there you are! Come in, lunch is served!", Amy called cheerily, putting a pot down on the table. A few days had passed since they'd returned to the base and everybody was preparing themselves.

"Lunch can wait, this is serious!" The pig stepped fully inside now, waving a sheet of paper at the rest of the group.

"What happened?", Sab asked seriously, already having forgotten about the food in front of her.

"Bad news?" Tails stood up so fast his chair was close to fall over when the two-tailed cub rushed to look at the paper Porker carried.

"Bad news alright…" The pig sighed. "You remember we thought once Sonic can destroy the portal Robotnik builds it would collapse the tunnel between the dimensions and get Mobius out of the Drakons' reach for good?"

"Won't that work?" Sol leaned back in his seat, arms firmly folding on his chest.

"It will, no worries here," Porker assured him.

"Then what's the matter?", Amy wondered, leaning against a cupboard.

"I was to talk about that. We all know, this… call it a wormhole up there isn't the only one. It's just the biggest. There are three more, one in Emerald Hill, one on Flickies Island and one more in Ice Cap," Porker started, walking towards the table to lay down the paper on a space that was still free of dishes so everyone could see. "Structurally these smaller portals and the big one form a geometrically very stable form-"

"A tetraeder," Tails shouted before Porker had a chance to finish.

"A what?", Sab frowned looking sheepish.

"It's like a pyramid made of four triangles. Like… a prism," Tails explained, visibly proud to know something the others didn't.

"Yes," Porker nodded at Tails. "Right. I calculated this through today. The four 'doors' to the Drakon world support each other."

"Means what exactly?", Sol demanded.

"It means they back each other up." The pig looked between the others.

"So, we gotta destroy them all?", Tails wondered.

"Just destabilize," Porker corrected, "They're linked, destroy the biggest and you should destroy all…"

"Alright!" Sab pounded one fist onto the table. "How do we destroy… eh… destabilize them?"

"It should be enough to confuse the working cycle of just one more to set the system out of proper work…", Porker corrected.

"Let's use a bomb!", Sol declared.

Everyone's heads snapped to the sheep.

"No bomb?", he asked at the sudden attention. "Was just an idea. If you don't like it…"

"No, no, no… I never said I don't like it… Just let me think this over…" Porker scratched his head.

The pig didn't get to make a decision. The loud beeping of an alarm bell sounded through the house, startling the remaining few of them still sitting finally off their seats. "What the hell is that?", Sol shouted, confused.

"Someone has just activated one of the small portal rings," Porker explained, spinning around to hurry up the stairs to his room.

"Wait! You got remote surveillance there?" Sab's eyes were wide with awe.

"Sure," Tails grinned. "I hacked one of Buttnik's satellites. Come on!"

Everybody running after Porker, Amy was left alone staring at the deserted table. "Hey! What about the food? Ooooohhh!"

* * *

A big branch hit the backside of his skull, sending a brief flicker of stars across his vision. Reflexively Knuckles' hand found its way to his head to carefully rub the aching spot. With a grunt he pushed himself back upright, immediately tumbling as the strong blows of storm yanked on him. Giving a small yelp, the echidna staggered out of the way of another piece of tree pulled loose by the hard winds.

The forest was a mess, toppled trees stapled their massive stems across the ground, leaves of all sizes and colors were whirling through the air in a frantic dance and the ground was knee-deep mud due to the daylong torrential rains.

When the island had gotten into the storm two days ago, Knuckles had tried using the Master Emerald's power to make it float higher up and get out of the bad weather in spite of his earlier words, but it was already too late. The island's landmass had caught the heavy clouds and would keep them until they emptied out and turned light enough to rise.

It was the worst storm Knuckles had ever witnessed in his life; and also Sonic said he hadn't seen anything like it before. The violent winds tearing on Angel Island's form from all direction were close enough to throw the complete island out of balance. Sure, the island was heavy, but it also offered a huge shape for the winds to grab, and right now the Master Emerald's power was used to capacity holding it stable and keeping the steady flow of ever increasing amounts of water across the island up.

Knuckles had checked on three of the five dams in the center mountains that controlled the flow of water into the caverns of Hydrocity today. All of them had broken under the stress and the red echidna didn't want to take any bets on how the two others looked.

Right now he was on his way back to the caves of Hidden Palace where he'd left Sonic. He'd planned to be there much earlier, but walking against the biting winds was hard; the paths all over the island he usually used were blocked by fallen trees or half hillsides that had come crumbling down because of the flooding rains.

Knuckles looked up from the wet ground at the rushing sound of water in front of him and he stopped at the edge of one of the usually serene brooks that went through the forest. It hard grown to a considerably big river, its brown water filling the complete gap in the rocks that formed its bed.

A frown crossed the guardian's brow as he watched the suspension bridge sway wildly, his ears definitively not liking the sounds the ropes and wood made. Well, no other way across. Grabbing the wires that formed the handrail, Knuckles took the first steps onto the unsteady path, the wooden planks creaking protestingly. Slowly and cautiously the echidna balanced across the insecure bridge, then his heart stopped beating for a second and his eyes shot wide open as the left side of the bridge's fixation as if in slow-motion pulled itself out of the ground it stuck in.

The moment it came out completely, a hard jolt ran through the entire bridge and Knuckles found himself running without having thought about it. Obviously upset about that no longer the least bit hesitant and gentle movement of the weight it had to carry, the second part of the fixation threatened to join the first.

Knuckles had almost made it across when the planks and ropes that formed his path were torn downwards by both gravity and the sharp winds. Instinctively Knuckles flung himself up and forwards. The second it got the chance to get a grip under his flaring dreadlock-quills, a blow of storm pushed Knuckles upwards so fast his stomach threatened to tell him how little it liked the sudden movement.

More or less successfully attempting to steer in the wind, the echidna kind of glided until he crossed solid ground. Trying to lower his glide, Knuckles upset the tiny bit of balance and control he'd had on his gliding by then. Another sudden sharp gust of wind sent him tumbling head over heels until he no longer knew where up was and where down, not even thinking of left or right.

At least the first question was answered when he landed face-first in what seemed to be a puddle of muddy water and ended up shredding his momentum sliding on his belly across a wet meadow. "Ouch," he muttered as he lay still for a little moment, mentally checking that every part of his body was more or less where it ought to be.

Pushing himself up to all fours, Knuckles cast a quick glance around and found himself on a small clearing. Half a meter from his head, the thick stem of a huge tree had just narrowly missed the opportunity to say hello to his skull. Crawling to his feet, the echidna brushed his hands through his fur, in vain attempting to wipe off water and dirt with gloves as dirty as his red pelt. Well, formerly red… right now the echidna wasn't sure if he could find any proper term to describe the shade of brownish-red whatever… But he had _much_ more important things to consider.

Deciding Sonic had stayed alone with the Emeralds for long enough and that he needed to get out of this cold rain, there wasn't much he could do anyway, Knuckles turned to head for the nearest entry to the cave system whose tunnels led to the Emerald chamber. Unlocking the one of the multiple secret doors all over the island and climbing into the barely visible hole, Knuckles breathed deeply in relief at leaving the storm outside behind him.

Five minutes of walking through the silent tunnels later the guardian stepped into the big Emerald chamber. From the center, a dim, but constant glow radiated into the room like a wave, telling Knuckles everything there was to know about the Master's work and energy level within the shortest of moments in a simple, instinctive way.

A way the other living being inside the room would need a long while to learn. Knuckles tilted his head, a tiny smile creeping onto his face at the sight of Sonic. The hedgehog was pacing the room at the opposite end of the dimly lit wide chamber, the small light that glowed in his hands held in front of his chest making a dot of yellow against the darkness of the wall and occasional openings to more tunnels behind Sonic's path.

The blue hedgehog stopped as his ears – remarkably sharp as Knuckles had learned throughout the past week – caught the sound of the guardian's entering footsteps. "And? Is the world still there outside or did the rain wash it away?"

Knuckles chuckled. "It's the strongest storm I've seen here in my life. Sometimes in winter the blizzards that bring lots of snow are near as bad, but I've never had anything like it in summer."

"How long do you think it'll last, Knux?"

For a second the echidna felt the urge to tell him the thousandth time or so it was 'Knuckles' and nothing else, but somehow... over the past days he had not only grown much more familiar with Sonic, also with the hedgehog's tendency to shorten his name. 'Knux' after all sounded a lot nicer than any other of the nicknames he'd been given. So Knuckles just let it pass for now.

"No idea," he answered directly instead. "A few more days at least. The clouds the wind has pressed against the island are hanging quite fixed to the summits." He smiled again. "Getting sick of staying inside already?"

Sonic laughed. "Not just that. You know, it's kinda spooky in here." He pointed over to one of the barely visible exits in the rocky walls. "Sometimes it howls there, as if there was a pack of wolves or something... Where does that tunnel go?"

"Outside," Knuckles answered readily, "it's an escape tunnel. In case there is something happening that forces the people in here to get out quickly."

"Ah, emergency exit, I see." Sonic nodded. "Must end at a place exposed to a lot of wind if it howls that way."

"Yes." Knuckles nodded back and pointed at the gemstone Sonic held. "How's it going?"

"Not really going at all. There is something, but I can't place it and it doesn't come out," Sonic complained.

Knuckles smiled at his grouching student. "You have chosen a great thing to start with if you ask me. Do you remember what I told you about each stone having one special power? Do you know what yellow's was?"

A sheepish grin spread on Sonic's face. "What'll be the punishment if I say 'no'?"

Knuckles smiled as well. "Healing."

"Is that the power or the punishment?" Sonic's trademark grin had grown another bit.

"I'll give you punishment in a second, hedgehog." The echidna shook his head. "So, what do you plan to heal?"

Sonic stared at him. "Um... that's why nothing works?"

"It might be one of the reasons. The power's got nowhere to go."

"Ah." Sonic nodded. "Then what?"

"Choose another one for now. We can-" Knuckles' sentence was interrupted in half when the ground suddenly was shaken by one strong blow that threw Sonic off his feet and falling onto his belly. The Chaos Emerald the hedgehog had been holding bounced on the floor when Sonic lost his grip on it, then it rolled along the ground and tumbled into the hole in the wall the hedgehog had indicated a moment before.

Knuckles watched the blue hedgehog jump back to his feet and instinctively scramble for the next wall before the echidna could no longer pay attention to Sonic. For a moment the guardian thought the ground beneath his feet was shaking again, then a cracking sound from above caught his attention. The reflex to leap back reacted a nanosecond too late and a scream to equal parts of shock and pain escaped Knuckles' lips when parts of the cave ceiling splintered and solid pieces of rock rained down on him.

Falling onto his back as a sharp pain impacted with his forehead, Knuckles found a haze of black washing over his senses, but rolled aside and onto his stomach, shielding his head with both hands and arms. When the headache dulled down enough to hear anything but the rush of blood in his ears, the noises and rumbling had stopped and a strange form of silence engulfed the room. Even the small sounds of storm outside had faded to mute.

Knuckles slowly pushed himself to all fours. His first look went to his right, but the steady glow of green immediately soothed the guardian's main worry. The lights coming from the Master Emerald and the set of six Chaos Emeralds strangely illuminated the hazy air filled with dust from the crumbled stones. Knuckles turned, finding a part of the opposite wall had come down, and in midst of big lumps of rock Sonic lay curled into a tight ball, blue spikes sharply pointing outwards.

"Sonic?", Knuckles called, interrupted by a cough. "Are you alright?"

In a single smooth movement the blue hedgehog had uncurled and was standing on his feet; the look on his face a strange mixture of embarrassment at being caught in that position, shock at what had just happened, and worry. "I'm good," he got out, just slightly shakily. "I guess I'm lucky. Just what in the world _was_ that?"

"I guess a landslide above us caused by the rain that smashed into the ground above the caves and shook them real good." Knuckles carefully tried getting up, swaying heavily as another wave of pain from his brow sent his head spinning.

"Whoa! Watch out, you're hurt!", Sonic called and there was a gust of wind when he rushed to steady the echidna. "You're bleeding!"

Knuckles lifted his hand to his forehead and for a few seconds just dumbly stared at the patch of red that had formed on his palm during the touch. "It's okay... Where's your Emerald?"

"Um.. Somewhere behind this?" Sonic pointed with his free left arm while his right held Knuckles around the shoulders.

For another long moment the echidna stared at the cave-in that had blocked the exit. "We need to get it. We can't tell how much worse it'll become."

"You want to dig all the way through?" Sonic' raised an eyebrow.

"No. The tunnel has a slope. It's gotta be at the other end."

"Where is that?"

Knuckles looked at Sonic and didn't quite dare to shake his head. "It's not as easy as you think."


	10. Difficulties

**Difficulties**

"You're kidding me, right?" Sonic craned his neck upwards, squinting through the rain up at where the vertical walls of rock seemed to directly melt into the cloudy sky.

Knuckles shook his head, immediately regretting it as it sent another wave of pain and dizziness through it. Bringing his hand up to his forehead, the guardian slowly turned to the hedgehog who was still supporting him. "No. It is one of the tunnels to leave the chamber in case of emergency. It ends up there on that small plateau to the left."

Sideways, Knuckles could watch Sonic's emerald eyes widen a little as he scanned the wall. The hedgehog snorted. "Just perfect, Knucklehead. Those ancient pals of you building that thing made some very stupid mistakes. How are you supposed to get away from there… or in our case - _up_ there?"

Knuckles grunted. "It was not at all stupid. The position up there in the rocks avoids that any intruders can get into Hidden Palace that way."

"But no-one who _did_ escape can get away from there either!"

"Of course." Knuckles sighed. "The only ones supposed to be in there were the priests and the guardians of the Emeralds. And all of them could get away from there... We're echidnas. We glide and we climb."

Sonic's jaw dropped at the matter-of-factly tone. "But… how do we get the Emerald down now?"

"I am the guardian, I will get it," Knuckles insisted, pulling away from Sonic's supporting grip. "I just gotta climb up there…"

'Just' was not quite the appropriate term as the echidna had to realize quickly. He had not walked more than two or three steps by the time the spinning feeling in his head had intensified enough to cause the pain to reach nauseous level and Knuckles found himself on his knees and hands.

"I see, it'll be a piece of cake for you," Sonic's sarcastic comment came from his side. "You can't walk, Red, you can't climb like that and you won't be good gliding with these winds anyway. Forget it."

Panting, Knuckles lifted his head to find the blue hedgehog crouched at his side. "I have to. We need the Emerald."

"You're gonna kill yourself. I'll get it." Sonic reached out to help pull Knuckles back to his feet.

"You?" Now it was Knuckles' turn to look bewildered. "How do you think you'll get up there? You don't climb, hedgehog."

Sonic smirked. "I don't? A week ago I didn't think I'd be handling Chaos Emeralds either. I learn fast."

"There is no time learning, hedgehog. You fail one grip and that was it." With some of Sonic's assistance Knuckles leaned against the opposite wall of the canyon.

"I'll manage. Thousands of people climb, why shouldn't I?" Sonic shushed him when Knuckles wanted to start over. "Shh... You were right, we need the Emerald. No Emeralds, no beating Robotnik and his fishy friends. I'll get it."

Knuckles frowned, the rain washing the blood from his head onto his face and slightly into his eye. Sonic stood in front of him, the look on his face almost challenging, utterly confident, but the echidna found there was a sense of rarely seen seriousness in the hedgehog's green eyes.

The guardian's eyes wandered from Sonic to the wall, the rock glazing with wetness and the storm hammering the rain against it. He looked up, tracking the small protruding piece that marked the exit of the escape tunnel. He'd never climbed up there himself. He'd left once using it, had jumped free and caught an up-draft to glide away.

More than one hundred meters round, as much as you could realistically discern a vertical distance by looking up into heavy rain and with your head pounding and concussed.

Knuckles looked back at Sonic, the hedgehog had crossed his arms again, tapping one foot onto the muddy ground. "You sure?"

Sonic shrugged, an all too easy, simple gesture. "Let me just try somethin'…"

Frowning, the red echidna watched as the hedgehog stepped the farthest away from the wall he could possibly go in the narrow gap, pressing his hand against the opposite rock, and pushed off running. A second later Sonic's feet met the rock, jolting the hedgehog upwards in a way Knuckles had never thought anyone could move up a wall. Running on it as if someone had installed treads for him.

But the movement slowed down too fast, inertia loosing out to the lack of friction for the sneaker soles and to the forces of gravity. Knuckles would have shouted a warning, but Sonic had already reacted as his feet started slipping downwards and the run stumbled into a fall. Curling up into a ball of quills, Sonic landed, bouncing off the ground a few times and rose to his feet, to Knuckles' big surprise unharmed.

"Damn stupid bloody water!" The hedgehog shook himself, the wetness of his spikes flying off, at least temporarily.

"Am I right if I say your 'trying something' has not worked?", Knuckles asked.

Sonic turned to him, glaring angrily. "What did it look like? Not enough run-up to gain any speed, too wet, too high… Not good at all."

"If you want up there you'll have to climb like normal people do," the echidna noticed, sliding down the rock in his back to sit against it when his knees felt they couldn't quite carry his weight any longer.

Sonic grimaced. "I guess so. Can't be too hard now, can it?"

Knuckles swallowed his comment when the hedgehog turned around walking towards the rock again. _Just perfect_. The echidna let his head slump against the stone in his back. Now he would watch the blue idiot committing suicide, and he could do nothing about it.

* * *

"Which one was it that triggered the alarm?" Tails leaned over Porker's shoulder curiously.

"Flickies Island, and to Mobius," the pig answered readily, eyes not leaving his screens.

"Means what?", Sol questioned impatiently.

"Means we got visitors from the nice Drakon Empire on Flickies Island," Tails explained before Porker had the chance.

The pig span around in his chair. "Right, Tails. The question is now… what do they want here? Our computers recorded a conversation between Robotnik in which the Drakon leader said they were ready for Robotnik to open the portal and enter our dimension in a week or so. What made them change their plans?"

Sol folded his arms. "They sent a small group of fighters without letting Robotnik know it."

"If I got everything right they teamed up to conquer our planet," Sab summarized. "Isn't it kinda logical both parties want to claim the whole prize?"

"You say… the Drakons are here to wait everything out and then get Mobius for themselves? Behind old Eggman's back?" Tails' namesakes twirled exitedly.

"If that's really the case… I'll bet my new dress Robotnik had the same idea already." Amy flicked her fingers.

Porker nodded slowly. "Neither of them has ever been a teamplayer really…"

"So, one enemy is trying to betray the other one!" Sab grinned. "This is the best that could happen to us…"

"If there is a quarrel within the enemy's troops that will greatly weaken them!" Sol smiled smugly.

"Ahem… I don't want to spoil everyone's fun now…" Tails frowned. "But I'm sure they didn't go and tell the other one 'Hey, we're planning on betraying you'."

"Tails has a point, without them knowing the other one is plotting behind their backs, this is of no use to us." Porker leaned heavily into his seat.

"Well… then we just gotta let them know it, don't we?" Amy shrugged.

"But how? If we're not being very careful, they'll notice our interference and think we're just playing tricks on them," Sab noticed with a sound of concern.

"Hm. In Robotnik's case it shouldn't be too hard. He's so surrounded by machines; he just _has_ to trust his computers…" A small smirk grew on Porker's face.

"Just gotta make sure the right data gets through to him then…" Tails grinned.

Sol raised an eyebrow. "The Drakons are harder…"

"I've got an idea." Amy smiled when everyone's heads whirled to her.

Five minutes later, grins lay on all freedom fighters' faces.

"Well then, let's play the new, awesome game!", Tails shouted enthusiastically. "Capture the Badnik!"

Amy laughed. "And then we'll call some friends to join the party!"

* * *

The first meters let Knuckles' worst anxiety decrease a little. The hedgehog was showing more caution than he had expected, searching with one foot or hand for a new hold before shifting his weight a little higher. Knuckles could very well see the lack of experience in all of his movements, but so far Sonic was making up for it with the strength Knuckles had learned he possessed although he didn't look like it.

Slowly, carefully, Sonic's hand felt over the rock, testing thoroughly if the gaps, cracks or projections would be strong enough to hold his weight. Knuckles took a shaky breath. This was nothing to look at. He jerked everytime a stone loosened under Sonic's feet and tumbled downwards.

Fifty meters high above him the blue hedgehog was now clinging to the wall; the distance already making it hard to see clearly, the still not receding rain just aggravating the problem of Knuckles' poor sight.

The echidna would have never imagined how much he wished now to switch positions. Climbing up a dangerous wall was one thing, sitting doomed to helplessly watch someone else doing it was a completely different matter. Knuckles' palms were wet, the warmth of the dampness indicating it was not just rain water but his own sweat adding to it.

The guardian's eyes scanned the rock above and around Sonic, searching for the way best to proceed for him. An utterly useless activity. So high up and surrounded by the rain and howling winds there was no chance the hedgehog would hear any advice, even if Knuckles shouted at the top of his lungs.

About five meters above Sonic and slightly to the right, Knuckles' gaze was caught by a crippled, apparently dead little tree that clung in a broader gap of the rock. If Sonic saw it… it would be a good place for a safe, short rest. Just a few of his pounding heartbeats later, the echidna knew the hedgehog had actually spotted the thing.

Carefully reaching out for it with one arm, Sonic pulled on the small stem, trying if it would break or fall, then obviously considered it safe and pulled himself up onto it to sit astride on the wood and lean back against the rock. For almost a minute he didn't move, catching his breath and recovering some of his stamina.

Then he slowly stood upright on the tree, hands feeling over the wall again to find a hold and keep climbing. _Come on_ , Knuckles thought _, you got almost half of the way… No wait, wrong, half of the way is the top._

Amethyst eyes by now completely tied to the small form of the blue hedgehog, Knuckles suddenly found the rain - before having been so hard the splashing of drops onto the stony ground, the meadows and the leaves of the forest a little away had formed an almost deafening staccato - seemed to have silenced during the past minutes, as if the very sky was holding its breath, avoiding any noise that could have disturbed the climbing hedgehog's concentration. Or it was just the guardian's senses playing tricks on him.

The echidna had not quite finished the thought when his breath caught cold in his throat. Sonic had just reached out for another protruding piece of the wall and leaned towards it, but the hedgehog's weight was too much for the stone. With a yelp of shock, he lost his fragile balance and fell.

Helplessly watching, Knuckles saw the hedgehog's body tumble a few meters down before crashing onto the crippled tree's stem. Although Sonic's howl of pain was audible even down at the bottom of the wall where Knuckles sat, the blue hedgehog's reflexes matched his running speed. Both arms and one leg wrapping around the old tree, Sonic caught his fall, the small stem whipping alarmingly, but in spite of Knuckles' expectation it would break any second it didn't.

Slowly the shaking receded and the so far motionless shape of blue Sonic looked like from below twitched, and Knuckles watched him pulling himself fully up again, once more leaning against the wall in the relative safety of the spot.

Sonic didn't move at all for a long time now, hours in Knuckles' feelings, minutes in reality maybe. Worriedly the guardian stared up to him, the pain of his own wounds almost forgotten by now. If Sonic had been gravely injured by the fall – how was he gonna get him down from there?

But after an endless eternity of waiting, Sonic turned towards the wall again, climbing now a little more to the left, slower than before, every movement less smooth than before. Knuckles didn't know how much it had taken to gradually tone down the panic after falling free, and if he was being honest, he wasn't too fond of knowing.

In a slight zig-zaggy pattern Sonic climbed higher and Knuckles found his own breathing calming a little when the hedgehog finally neared the protruding small platform. But Sonic had slowed down such much in the last minutes… _Two_ _more meters, Sonic_ , the echidna thought. Then it became one, and half a minute later, Sonic pulled himself over the edge and disappeared from Knuckles' view.

It felt like another daytime to the echidna until Sonic's head reappeared looking briefly over the edge before the hedgehog slowly started descending feet first. One slow footstep after the other, one careful grip at a time. It had completely stopped raining now and Knuckles spotted the small yellow glow where Sonic had tucked the Chaos Emerald between his spikes to keep his hands free.

Climbing down was always harder than climbing up, Knuckles knew that very well. Even for him - being a natural climber and much better equipped for it than Sonic - it was. Your own feet blocked your view down and hindered you finding good holds. Then of course, looking down at all could be somewhat a problem, even if you were not afraid of heights. The ground would always seem kilometres away from you and it wouldn't much improve while you got lower. It was some kind of struggle your brain had getting along with your eyes' information.

Managing the most dangerous part of the descent, Sonic reached the tree again, but although Knuckles had expected him to need another break, the hedgehog immediately kept climbing. As it seemed, the urge to get down to safe ground had grown bigger than common sense that would have considered a short rest.

Knuckles tried standing up again to get over to the hedgehog when he was to reach the ground, but his knees gave in half of the way, the last minutes' constant alarm clearly not having been what his concussed head had needed at all. So he just sat, watched, waited.

* * *

Sol hurried through the forest, along a narrow path between big tree, throwing hasty glances back over his shoulder. The robot was right behind him, several heads taller than he was and a lot broader. Passing over a small clearing, the sheep dived for cover into a thick, wildly grown piece of Mobian shrubbery.

"Okay… Everybody… get ready," Sab whispered.

Tails nodded silently, fastening his grip on the metal net, flexing his tails and waiting for the exact moment to lift himself off.

"There it comes!", Amy called lightly, jumping out behind the bush she'd been hiding in and immediately starting to hop up and down wildly waving her arms at the victim of the operation. "Hello there! Little Badnik! Heeeeere!"

The moment Sol's persecutor located the pink hedgehog and turned to her, Sab dropped out of the tree she'd waited in, now also hopping and shouting.

Confused and trying to make a decision which one of the suddenly grown number of targets to get first, the robot stopped, its head rotating around.

"Now Tails!", Amy shouted.

The little fox reacted fast, twin tails spinning rapidly as they lifted both the weight of their owner and the net he carried. Advancing across the clearing, Tails let go of his freight, dropping it onto the still confused machine. "Porker!", the fox shouted as soon as he'd let go.

A few meters away, sitting behind a large tree's stem, Porker Lewis turned the switch of his battery, sending a jolt of high voltage along a long wire connected to the net Tails had dropped onto the robot. The machine jerked erratically as the strong current was sent through it, then the glow of its eyes dimmed out as it shut down.

Landing aside of Amy, Tails smiled. "Capture complete."

Porker nodded, walking out of his hideout. "Now lets see we load it with some nice little data, repair the charred wires-"

"-and call our nice pals the Sky Pirates to deliver the package," Amy finished for him.

* * *

Sonic dropped down the last bit of the climb, landing on his knees and hands panting. Every single fiber his muscles consisted of shivered rapidly with overstrain. This was not like anything he was used to. Sonic was built for high speeds in not quite constant bursts; that was what he was good at, and it was what he was trained at. Slowly pulling himself up and down a wall of rock was a thing for Knuckles, not him.

The fall at half of the way had left deep gashes in his flesh where the sharp edged rocks had torn through fur and skin, and now that his concentration was no longer focussed entirely on where to put a hand or foot and how to safely shift his weight, Sonic felt the warm blood ooze into fur and the stinging of sweat dropping into the wounds.

For a moment he just hunkered, feeling his heart beat against his ribs, then he pulled himself up using the wall for support. Unsure of his own steps, the blue hedgehog turned around and slowly stumbled on wobbly knees over to where Knuckles sat against the rock, distractedly noticing the echidna was still bleeding from the bump on his head.

Sonic slipped down aside of Knuckles, adrenaline slowly ebbing away. "Knux?"

"What?" The guardian sounded as groggy as Sonic felt, and for a second the hedgehog wondered if it was their both not near good condition that he had completely ignored Sonic shortening his name again.

"I… just… realized… you… climb…. better… than me," Sonic gasped, but a small grin made it to his face.

Knuckles turned his head to him, seeming to drop even more against the rock in his back. "I could have told you that before."

"But… at least… I… run better… than you do," Sonic continued.

Knuckles' gaze slowly wandered up and down the beaten form at his side. "You sure about it right now?"

Sonic snickered. "Yeah. You can't even look straight…" The hedgehog paused a second, casting a glance over the desolate look they both gave now. "A fine party to defend the world we are… Any ideas how we'll kick Eggman's butt like this?"

Knuckles gave a tiny nod, but lifted his hand to support his head as it seemed to have been not a good thing to do. "One. You are aware you got the Chaos Emerald capable of healing stuck in those spines of yours?"

Sonic stared at him, then reached into his quills and pulled out the yellow gemstone. "You mean I should try using it?"

"No," came the guardian's sarcastic reply, "I mean you should sit here some longer and stain the ground of my island with big puddles of your blood, hedgehog."

Sonic looked down onto the Chaos Emerald for a moment. "How do I use it?"

"Like the other ones, focus on it and tap into the healing power." The statement sounded like 'go around the next corner and you'll find a chilli dog stand there' out of Knuckles' mouth.

"Wonderful."

"You'll recognize it. I can only tell how the Master Emerald's bit of healing energy feels when I used it to heal myself before, not the Chaos Emeralds'," Knuckles continued calmly, still holding his injured head with one hand. "It feels…. like… easing the pain even before it starts going away..."

Sonic frowned. "That sounds not very logical. What means it sounds very Emerald-like." His eyes retuned to the shining stone in his hands. "Okay, shut up, I'll give it a try."

Unlike Sonic's expectations Knuckles didn't say anything at all, and after a moment the hedgehog concentrated his attention on the yellow stone. Green eyes slowly slid shut as the small, deeply hidden sense Sonic had trained so much during the past time dug itself into the pulse of energy resting on his palm.

But all Sonic felt at first was the waves of pain slowly creeping through his body and he was already close to give up when he caught a faint, mental glimpse of a soothing tingle from within the crystal. He reached out for it, but found it slipping away as another cringe of pain tore at his senses; the discomfort breaking the fragile link before it could truly develop.

Sonic tensed up, as a result finding himself being pulled astray just further, and drew a deep breath, trying to relax again. Slowly the small impression came back and now Sonic held onto it as good as he could, feeling a dam inside of him break and a warm flow of chaos energy formed within him.

Although Knuckles had told him once they did use the same principle and the same sort of power, Emerald healing differed greatly from ring healing. A ring was a golden round construct of chaos power that immediately transformed into free energy flowing into your body as soon as you came into contact with it. There was no need to think about it at all, just for a split-second there was that 'ting' sound and the injury would be gone as if it had never existed.

The Emerald, as Sonic found out, was different. Ring healing went unconscious, what happened right now wasn't close to it. The blue hedgehog could feel every tiny single bit of chaos energy concentrate at the wounded parts; he could feel his very cells repairing and rebuilding, and the gaps torn into his flesh growing shut again. The burning at his nerves stopped and instead, for the weirdest of moments, all of them seemed to vibrate, but it wasn't uncomfortable, and as it stopped the pain had eased out of him.

Not quite sure if it was over or not Sonic sat still for some longer, caught in the wonderful moment of relief, but found there was nothing more to happen and his lids slowly lifted again; emerald eyes disbelievingly taking in his look. Parts of his fur were still painted with about-to-dry blood, but the injuries it had bled from had vanished without leaving a trace on his body. Carefully feeling inside himself, Sonic found it had not taken away the exhaustion, but everything else, even the stiffness of his muscles.

"You see now? It wasn't too hard, was it?" The comment from his side reminded him of Knuckles and the hedgehog turned to look at the echidna. The red furred guardian leaned groggily against the rock, blood still dripping slightly from his brow, face pale and strained eyes focussed on Sonic.

"It was easier than I'd thought. Maybe you're not such a bad teacher after all," Sonic replied, trying a smile. Once again his eyes cast over Knuckles. "How do I use it to heal _you_?"

For a second there was a total lack of understanding on the echidna's features, then his expression softened. "I don't know. I am capable of using the Master Emerald to heal myself, but this is an ability unique to its guardians. It happens even if I don't try myself; in a slighter and much slower way though. I don't know about the Chaos Emeralds. It might be you can only heal yourself."

"I could try…", Sonic started, but stopped when Knuckles moved his head in the smallest shake he had ever seen.

"No. Don't exhaust the power. It needs time to rebuild and you will need it soon. I can handle it... But I will need your help."

Sonic inclined his head. It was the first time Knuckles had ever asked for something like that. "You _have_ my help," he replied, playfully attempting a formal look.

A tiny smirk darted over the echidna's face for a second as Sonic pulled him to his feet, once again slinging his arm around his shoulder and getting a firm grip around his back.

"So... Where do you want, Knux?", Sonic asked, again smiling as no protest about being nicknamed came any more. _One point for the hedgehog_ , he thought.

Knuckles' answer was simple and somewhat expected. "Hidden Palace."


	11. Steps Ahead

**Steps Ahead  
**

Amy leaned past the railing to watch the robot being lowered down to the beach of Flickies Island. Its feet touched the sand and Tails walked up to it to free the machine's torso off the rope they'd used to let it down. Then the small fox reset the last circuit breaker and quickly jumped away from the rebooting machine, flying up to join Amy on the ship's deck.

"Everything ready, young mate?", Captain Plunder asked the fox, pointing down on the robot.

Tails nodded. "Now all we need is our Drakon friends to find it."

Amy smiled. "Flickies Island isn't too big; shouldn't be a problem."

"So we are ready to heave out, Milady?", Plunder asked the pink hedgehog; he still hadn't forgotten her hammer rampage.

The girl grinned. "Yes, Captain! Everything ready to go! Next stop: Ice Cap!"

* * *

"What do you want?", the Drakon Emperor snapped at his underling who'd had the nerve to interrupt his dinner.

"Excuse my disturbance, but an urgent notice from our secret advance party on Mobius reached us," the servant apologized, shuffling into a submissive stance.

Luckily for him, his ruler's rage was short-lived. Interest caught, the Emperor dropped his anger. "What is it?"

"They have captured one of Robotnik's walking devices and analyzed the data in it. It appears our alliance is crumbling. The human is purposely delaying the construction of the dimension portal to finish his own fleet of battleships first that should give him an edge over our troops after the defeat of the Mobian population."

The Emperor snickered. "So, planning to deceive us? _Us_? The mighty Drakon Empire? How _dare_ that fool?" His look snapped back to his underling. "Does he know anything about our secret party sent to his planet already?"

"As far as the data allows judgement, he does not, Master."

"Good." The Drakon leader relaxed. "Tell our fellow warriors on this island to keep their heads low and eyes open. We'll let Robotnik do his thing without interference. Once he has finished his portal and let us into his universe, our army will be upon him before his traitorous soul has understood the dimension of his failure."

* * *

The small piece of crystal in his hands was a tangle of weirdness. Sonic frowned, closed eyelids twitching in strain as his mind tried its hardest to follow the invisible lines inside the Emerald, but everything seemed a mess, a complex network of energy and each of the different pulses called to lead him astray, each in a different direction without a way for him to tell which one was the right to choose.

"You still think too much," Knuckles remarked in a quiet voice.

Sonic's eyes flew open again to look at the echidna. Knuckles was sitting across of him on a small kind of carpet, a bandage still around his head, but aside of that nothing indicated the trouble of by now five days ago. The guardian's Master Emerald healing seemed to work well enough even passively.

The torches lighting the room flickered, slightly hiding Sonic's grimace under a dance of shadows across the hedgehog's face. "It's easy for you saying so, Knux," he complained. "You're a pro at this. I am not."

"You have been doing fine the last days," Knuckles noticed with a small shake of his head.

It were the first words of real praise Sonic heard out of the stoic guardian's mouth and a smile flashed on the hedgehog's face. "Well, the stuff we did before was easier than that."

The red echidna inclined his head, two of his dreads half falling into his face. "I know. You don't only need to know and recognize the differences between them or use two of the seven. You'll be confronted with all of them, so you have to _know_ all of them. Healing is one of the easiest powers and speed is most likely your main natural talent." Knuckles slightly shifted his weight while keeping his eyes calmly on Sonic. "I doubt that you'll be able to use all of them. Not directly and not without assistance of another power they can interact with. Most of them add together and are only really strong when unified. I know some can be used alone. You know two. This is the third." He pointed at the red gemstone Sonic held.

The hedgehog briefly looked down on it. "I just don't get it. How am I supposed to get it to tell me the truth? I always thought…"

"What did you think?", Knuckles asked when Sonic stopped.

"I thought 'truth' was something clear. Something… straight. But this is…" He looked down into the ruby glow again. "It's as if there was… a knot. Like a… labyrinth, with thousands of ways to take."

Knuckles smiled at Sonic's struggle to find the words for what he felt. "Truth is not what you might think it is. You think it like something as a fact, something fixed, something solid and determined, right?"

One of Sonic's triangular ears flicked backwards slightly and the hedgehog nodded hesitantly. "I guess something like this, yes."

"This is not what the name of truth in case of the Emeralds means. The Emeralds are chaos, and chaos is the only stable thing they know. The Emeralds cannot tell the truth. Not in that complete sense you thought it to do. The only thing that is true to the Emerald is that it is chaos."

Sonic's frown had deepened considerably during Knuckles' speech. "I don't get it," he admitted, looking as helpless as he felt.

"I know." The guardian nodded, smirk well hidden in the flickering light filling the cave. "I'll give you an example. When you and Tails first landed here, Robotnik had already come and told me you were after the Master Emerald. For me, it was true that you were the enemies, for I as a living being believed it. In my version of the truth you were evil enemies I had to fight."

Sonic nodded to signal he'd followed so far, interest caught enough by the matter itself to attract his mind away from giving a joking comment on the echidna's naivety back then.

"In your version of truth you were the good guys and I was interfering with your fight against Robotnik," Knuckles continued. "So, it was true to one of us you were evil and to another one you were good. Both at the same time."

Sonic shook his head. "Your truth was untrue then."

Knuckles let out a short chuckle. "No. To me it was true. To you it was untrue. Both of our ideas of the other one were true at that time, in the chaos sort of way. But neither of them actually described reality. Truth depends on the individual. Reality is how the world really is. But as we are all individuals we can only ever know what is true, not what is real. The Emerald can show your truth, or mine, or someone else's, but if you search for something beyond that you'll keep trying forever."

Sonic stared down on the red stone, then back at Knuckles. "So… what does it tell me then?"

"If you want a real answer I'd say it tells you things about yourself more than things about what is around you. It teaches a look inside, as inside your heart and your soul is the only thing that can truly interact with the Emeralds. No understanding of yourself and no understanding of the power leads to no bond being able to build and no control being achieved. If there is no interaction, no bond to develop… things like Super Sonic happen."

With the last of Knuckles' words it became so silent in the small cave hedgehog and echidna sat in you could have sworn both had stopped breathing. In spite of sitting stiller than he maybe ever had before in his life, Sonic's thoughts were racing through his head, turning the echidna's words over and over, trying to link them to things he already knew or at least could guess, to memories, questions and ideas as much as to some of his vaguer feelings.

It needed long until he looked up at Knuckles again. "I don't know how I'm gonna go about this 'tapping into the power thing' you want me to try," he confessed. "Can't you help me somehow? Like with… where to start?"

Knuckles looked into his eyes for a moment and nodded then. "Alright. Try to open your knot, Sonic. Tell me when you're ready and I'll ask you a few questions. You don't need to answer me. Just answer silently to yourself and try to find what is true to _you_."

"Okay, sounds freaky, but we'll try that." Sonic lowered his gaze down onto the crimson gemstone again, for a few seconds letting it trail deeply into the glow before slowly closing his eyes. Taking deep breaths like Knuckles had taught him before, Sonic reached for the tangle of twisted energy strings he had felt before until it was as if he could almost really _see_ the knot they formed.

Letting instinct decide Sonic followed one of them until the idea of the others' existence started blurring away, then he slightly nodded his head to tell Knuckles he was ready, fearing a word by himself would break his grip on the small string of Emerald power.

"Do you love running?" Knuckles' voice asking that ridiculously trivial question appeared to come from a long way off.

_Yes_ , Sonic thought immediately, and his mental 'word' seemed to echo from inside the crystal in his hands.

"Do you think Porker is weak for always being afraid of things?" Another pretty strange, random question, but a lot more personal already.

_No, he's not._ _Everybody's afraid of something, and he's always been there if I needed him in spite of his fears_ , Sonic's thought answered from inside his head and in the same time again from inside the Emerald.

"Do you trust me?"

_Yes_ , the echo had answered before Sonic could convince himself to do it, but the second the _unthought_ thought floated through his mind he knew it was true anyway.

"Are you afraid of the Chaos Emeralds?"

_A little_ , Sonic answered, now again faster than the echo. _But not that much any more. Water's worse._ It was a good thing Sonic knew Knuckles couldn't hear his answers, knew no-one besides himself – and the weird echoing voice of himself from inside the Chaos Emerald – would hear his confessions, and somehow saying things, admitting things without actually doing so felt like… a relief?

"Do you hate Robotnik?", Knuckles' voice interrupted the hedgehog's musing just in time to keep it from distracting him too much from the Chaos Emerald energy he held.

_Yes_ , the two of his thoughts shouted in unison even before the last tone had left Knuckles' lips.

"Would you kill Robotnik if you had the chance?"

_Yes_ , Sonic thought immediately, and felt as if he'd just gotten smacked across the face the moment he did. _Wrong_! the echo called at him, and Sonic's face crunched up at noticing it was right. Robotnik after all still contained _something_ that had once been part of his friend Kintobor, he was alive even though he was just evil anymore and nothing of what he'd been actually remained, but Sonic knew he couldn't destroy a life, no matter who the person was. Not directly with his own hands. Maybe in a fight for survival he'd be able to kill someone to save his friends or his own life, but he could never murder… _Okay, I got it, shut up already and don't do that again! That was harsh_! the hedgehog silently told the Emerald echo, taking a slow breath to calm himself down again.

There was a moment of silence before Knuckles brought up the next question. "Do you think you have a chance against Robotnik's forces?"

_I'll kick his fat butt. I always do_ , Sonic replied and somehow felt that if the echo had a face, it would have nodded and grinned.

"If we lose, what'd you do?"

_Go on like before. The_ _Freedom Fighters have fallen before, but we never stay down for long_. Sonic could feel a small smile of confidence slip onto his face in spite of the concentration.

"If we win, what'd you do?", Knuckles asked for the second possible outcome.

_Have a party and then g_ _o on a looooooooooooong run and see everything I want to without getting chased by robots._ Sonic's smile grew to a grin.

"Do you think that was enough questions now?"

"You bet," Sonic said aloud, opening his eyes and instantly the little echo vanished back into the crimson mess of oblivion it had come from. "I'll feel like a crazy patient at the psychologist if you keep asking that stuff."

"We don't want that." Now the echidna grinned, too. "So, how did it work?"

Sonic shrugged, glancing down on the red gemstone briefly. "It was… weird. As if there was someone talking in my thoughts whose voice came out of the Emerald. It knew _everything_ … and… " He shook his head, running a hand through his spines. "Just strange… You feel odd talking to someone in your head, you know? Do I need to do that _again_?"

Much to Sonic's delight, Knuckles shook his head. "I don't think so. You know how it works now. That's all I intended. I'd leave it at that unless you're really fond of another attempt."

"No thanks." The blue hedgehog tossed the red gem over to the echidna. "You can play with it now." He hopped up to his feet, suddenly feeling highly stir-crazy. "I'll take a break from your Emerald stuff now. This hedgehog needs a good run."

Knuckles smiled. "I expected that. It'll be slippery outside, so don't fall into any traps again."

Sonic stuck out his tongue. "No way!"

* * *

"What? How dare these fools betraying me," Robotnik fumed faced with the newest updated information one of his automatic surveillance systems had just brought to him about a message between his 'allies' it had caught. "They sent a small army here already? They want me to finish this portal and then destroy me? ME? The ruler of this planet?"

Grimer ducked, trying to look unsuspicious, trying to become invisible at its best. An enraged Robotnik was unpredictable. So he better didn't remind his boss that 'ruler of this planet' was merely a memory of a better past the most hated blue pest on the entire planet had very successfully put an end to; neither dared he to notice Robotnik's intentions with his allies were of no other nature than using their help and then get them out of the way. No, Grimer had made a lot of mistakes during his life, he would not add another one. This one would surely be fatal.

Luckily for the green skinned assistant, Robotnik was busy imagining what he would do with the traitorous fish once he got the chance.

It took almost ten minutes until Grimer dared to move again when Robotnik heavily dropped into his chair, having exhausted himself and running out of insults and cruelties to shout about. "Doctor Robotnik, Sir? Do you want me to prepare one of our battleships to wipe the intruders off Flickies Island, Sir?"

"NO!" Robotnik half jumped up again. "No! You idiot haven't understood my genius plan yet!"

"Sir, I would be grateful to be enlightened..." Grimer bowed.

"We leave them alone. All robot patrols from now on don't set a foot on that island!"

"But.. Sir?"

"Enhance the weapons on our fleet! Built bigger ships! Mightier ships! They will get to know what it means upsetting Ivo Robotnik! I will be prepared! Hohahahaha!" The former dictator cracked with laughter.

"Alright, Sir," Grimer hurriedly assured him, spinning on his heels to leave his boss' office. If he wasn't mistaken, war was about to break lose.


	12. Countdown To Chaos

**Countdown To Chaos  
**

The next week passed faster than Sonic had thought was possible. He had to give his host and mentor that one: He was incredibly talented stuffing one's day with odd sessions of chaos training in a way the day was over before you had really realized it had started.

Sonic didn't get to see much of Angel Island anymore, what was partly up to the just slowly improving weather... Well, improving in the sense that the not stopping downpours had turned into heavy fog and clouds around the top of the island's mountains and the occasional drizzle that would fall from them.

In the end, Sonic wasn't given a lot of chances complaining about the weather. While he had to admit with every day and every lesson he was given, he got a faster and more intuitive grasp on the Chaos Emeralds, he wasn't sure if he would ever get near as good at it as Knuckles apparently was. Praise was something the echidna gave out just rarely, but the few times he did were actually kind of motivating. The training stayed exhausting nonetheless and quite a lot of days ended with the blue hedgehog just falling asleep right where he was at the time.

With regard to the lessons' content Sonic figured out he could he could actually rather easily tap into the dark blue Emerald's speed power, even yellow's healing force was fathomable once you knew what to look for. The same went for a few others of the magic stones. Still, another few of them remained shiny gems causing tingling nerves when he touched them that refrained letting him use their powers. Much to Sonic's disappointment, he didn't manage to get the light blue Emerald to turn him invisible.

Knuckles didn't seem overly surprised about the fact his student didn't make an equal amount of progress with all of the gems. He wore a small smirk when Sonic gave up on his attempt becoming an invisible hedgehog and his voice carried an amused undertone when he noticed it was normal Sonic wouldn't get to master each of the special powers. All Sonic understood of the explanation the guardian gave was that every person, every chaos channeler at least, had something like an own chaos field that interacted with Emeralds, or chaos energies in general, that were in some way alike to it.

The echidna answered Sonic's confused comeback if he really had a such a field thing by taking him to the Master Emerald chamber, touching one hand to Sonic's forehead and the other to the Master Emerald and announcing Sonic's chaos field had a cyan blue coloring. For a moment the hedgehog considered asking Knuckles if he was one sandwich short of a picnic, but decided against it. While he had learned the echidna actually had a sense of humor, Sonic wasn't willing to find out how far it went concerning Chaos Emeralds. Still, for the rest of that day the hedgehog kept throwing side-glances at the red guardian, trying to figure out if Knuckles had played a trick on him or if he was actually serious about it.

In the evenings, sitting at a warming fireplace, Knuckles would tell him what else you could do with the Emeralds. Teleportation was something that immediately sparked Sonic's interest, but to his disappointment the echidna denied the hedgehog's begging to try it out, claiming Sonic wasn't on a level to try something as complicated yet, the whole super form thing would be more than enough, and that any attempts would consume too much of the Chaos Emerald's energy.

Energy that would soon be needed. When Porker Lewis noticed during a short radio call that the question when Robotnik's portal ring would be opened was merely a matter of today, tomorrow or the day after that, Sonic was almost shocked to notice he was right. What had happened to three weeks? It seemed to him as if the time had just vanished somewhere, and now it was Robotnik who would make the move...

* * *

Sonic hated waiting. In the blue hedgehog's eyes, it was the most annoying thing in the world. This sitting around, nothing you could do to change whatever was going to happen, you could just sit and - wait. It was pulling on all his nerves, by now all of them being close to snapping under the load, and he knew Knuckles didn't feel much better.

The echidna was _pacing_. Back and forth in the Emerald Chamber, one, two, three turns around the Master Emerald. Every now and then he would stop to stare at the giant green gemstone, maybe in some sort of telepathic dialogue with it whose nature nobody else would ever understand, only to continue his pacing a few seconds later.

Sonic himself was dangling his legs on the rock he sat on, slowly going crazy while he watched Knuckles walk. It went like this for two days already. For those two days they had done nothing but sit around, wait, go through the most important things again, wait, sit around, wait. The entire routine was driving Sonic nuts. How much he wished he could just go outside and run off his anxiety, run off his nervousness before he lost the last bit of sanity left watching a red echidna slowly walking grooves into his floor.

But the hedgehog knew full well he couldn't leave now. All they waited for was Porker's signal that the invasion began, and Sonic was sure once he decided to go outside, and even if it was just for half an hour, right then the damned Eggman would decide to open his stupid ring thingy.

So he was doomed to sit here, doomed to wait. Wait for something he wasn't very much looking forward to anyway… but by now he had reached the point he hoped it would happen right now, just to get out of this horrific waiting thing.

* * *

"We could… check that Sab, Sol and their friends are ready…"

Porker tiredly turned to Amy at her idea. "We did already. Four times today, and yesterday another few. If they weren't as bored as we are, they'd come back with that bomb all the way just to blow _us_ up so we'll finally shut up."

"Oh." Amy blushed and fell silent, at least for now.

Tails shook his head, watching his feet dangling lazily from the desk he sat on. Forwards, reaching the highest point, backwards until he could see them no more, forwards again… Realizing what he was doing, the fox shook his head again.

It went like that for almost a week now. They were pretty sure both enemy parties had accepted their half-faked information on each other. The Flock had set out to Ice Cap with a bomb to use it on the little portal ring there when the time came. The Sky Pirates waited not far from the freedom fighters' home base for them, ready to fly out and attack the Drakon group on Flickies Island.

Overall, everybody was waiting. Waiting for Robotnik to finish his work on the big portal. The signal that the battle would start. So far they waited in vain.

"Um, guys? Are you sure we checked up on–"

"YES!", both Porker and Tails shouted, spinning around to Amy.

"Oh…okay…" The pink hedgehog giggled.

* * *

"Sonic? Knuckles?" Both the hedgehog and the echidna jumped at the sound of Tails' voice through the long time deadly silent radio.

Sonic had snatched it before Knuckles could even think of moving to get it. "Tails? What's up, little buddy?"

"Sonic? It's happening," the young fox blurted out right away. "Robotnik is initiating the sequence to activate the portal this moment. The others are already preparing to get to Flickies Island and rid it of the Drakon troops there… Now the rest is up to you. Good luck, Sonic!"

"Thanks, little bro. Good luck for you guys, too." Sonic stared at the radio for a moment, then put his hand holding it down. Suddenly the wait was over, suddenly the nervous sitting around taken away from him, but instead of anything else he would have expected, he felt numb now that it was gone so abruptly. Suddenly he wasn't sure if he was ready for this.

Knuckles reached to take the radio set from Sonic's hand, laying it away again before turning to the hedgehog. "Hey. Sonic. Look at me."

"Knux I…"

"Doubts? Now?" The echidna shook his head. "Don't desert me now. You're supposed to be the one telling me there is always a way winning… Isn't that your part?"

A short smile flicked on Sonic's face. "I guess…"

Knuckled nodded, for the first time in their both lives reaching to lay his hand on Sonic's shoulder. "See? You are most likely the one best prepared for what is to come now… Don't get cold feet on me now, okay?"

The hedgehog looked at him almost desperately. "Have you ever felt like suddenly carrying the whole planet, Knux?" In fact, Sonic felt that load for years already; as much as Robotnik's very existence was at least partly up to him, saving the planet and his fellow Mobians from the mad doctor's grip was somehow his responsibility. It just felt much worse to him right now. "If I screw up…"

Knuckles shrugged as though that didn't matter at all. "Since when do you screw up?"

Sonic chuckled briefly. "Maybe you're right…"

"For sure I am right. Now pull yourself together and go kick their butts, okay?" Knuckles' large hand squeezed Sonic's shoulder.

The hedgehog smiled a little, cocking a brow at the echidna. "I'd never thought you'd ever say something like that."

"Me neither." Knuckles smiled back. "Must be your bad influence on me. Count it as one of many new things to happen today."

Sonic nodded slowly. "Fine." His eyes wandered from Knuckles over to the circles the seven Chaos Emeralds formed on the floor.

Knuckles reassuringly nodded at him. "Go ahead."

Reluctantly Sonic made a few steps towards the gemstones, but stopped right before he reached them. "Maybe you better leave and take the Master Emerald out of the line too. Just in case I –"

Leaning against the Master Emerald in demonstrated relaxation, Knuckles shook his head. "No. The Emerald and me, we're perfectly safe here. I survived two and a half weeks in your company, do you honestly think a few more minutes will hurt me? I haven't spent these last weeks to miss on the outcome, Sonic."

The hedgehog smiled, feeling some of the weight loose from his shoulders at Knuckles' apparent faith in him, and turned back to the round of shiny gems, slowly taking the last steps into their midst. A last glance at the echidna brought him another nod, and Sonic closed his eyes, trying to recall everything Knuckles had taught him during the past weeks in one moment.

He failed miserably, finding his mind completely blank and almost unable to really think at all. The hedgehog swallowed dryly, forcing his breathing to drop to a steady rhythm like he'd been taught before he tried to sense out for the Emeralds surrounding him.

It took a few silent seconds, then the darkness behind closed eyes flared with colors, Emerald formed flames torched his senses, and Sonic felt as though he was standing in warm light that started to shine more from inside than around him with every second it lasted.

All seven Chaos combined were mighty, their forces pushing against the barriers Sonic had learned to put up around them and himself, the comfy warm flames threatening to become a giant blaze that wouldn't comfort but burn him. No-one could have prepared him for this. Not even Knuckles. No-one could have told him what to do when it became painful, when it tried to break him from the inside.

Sonic ground his teeth, trying his best to ignore the pain that seemed to start tearing him apart. _Think of something nice_ … That was what Knuckles had said he should do, and so the hedgehog tried forcing his mind away from what was happening to him just the slightest bit, and the image of his friends flashed in his head, of Tails' blue eyes, Knuckles' stubborn look, Amy's cheery waves, Porker's relieved face after they had rescued him from the Metallixes…

...and _Johnny_...

The grimace on his face melted into a fierce grin as the heat flared once more, the pain almost bringing him down to his knees, almost shattering the picture in his mind. Trying to replace it with something else, trying to overwhelm him with its sheer might. It almost succeeded, almost got what it wanted, almost got him to crumble into fear, anger, despair.

Almost.

 _Get the fuck out of my head!_ The wording seemed ridiculous, said to a set of magical stones trying to consume his mind. But it was saying something, and if just in his thoughts, something opposing what the energy tried to do, and right now as he quivered with agony _anything_ he put against it was a weapon. Even a colloquial curse. A more, and even if just slightly, a more powerful thing in fact than any of the pains. Still, Sonic screamed out as in a last effort working against him something that felt like a deeply buried part of his very soul was ripped out of him and scorched to die in the flames surrounding him.

The desperate gasp for air brought him back to his senses, and all of a sudden he realized, no, _knew_ he'd just won a battle of a sort no Robotnik or empire in the universe could ever put up against him; and he hesitantly sensed out for the warm glow from the Chaos Emeralds around him, soft, waiting, longing to stroke his aching mind, and now he eventually let it through to him, gratefully accepting the relief it offered. Dams broke after a second of hesitation and a wave of chaos energy washed right over him, taking him in and filling him up until he could feel nothing else anymore. No pain, no despair, no fear, not even gravity, not even time.

Sonic slowly breathed it in until the rise of its level died out, until it was just there, as nearly a part of him. As if it had always belonged there.

And then he started to _hear_. Hear the loud hum of power from inside the Master Emerald rolling like booming thunder through the cave, hear Knuckles' heart fiercely beat in the echidna's chest, hear the winds rushing around Angel Island's form, hear the wake turbulence of huge airships striving through the atmosphere, hear a hole open miles away above his head.

His eyes flew open when he remembered what had brought him here. The first thing he saw was Knuckles, staring at him with a look the closest to awe the guardian most likely would ever show.

"Sonic?"

The hedgehog grinned. "Who else do you think is here?" He allowed some of his relief to drip into his voice. He could still think, he could still feel, he was still… _Sonic_ … No, he was more than just Sonic. "So… is this how it feels, huh?"

"What do you feel?" Slowly Knuckles walked closer to him, observing in obvious curiosity. Adding to it, there was a notion is his eyes Sonic dared to guess was - pride? Maybe it wasn't that much of a wild guess even, after all, Knuckles had brought him here.

"Can't describe it, Knux," Sonic answered him, shrugging off the contemplation, busy staring at his hands. They were glowing yellow, even _through_ the fabric of his gloves, so were his arms, and everything looked as if he was _steaming_ energy. "I am so… _light_ …"

"You're floating," Knuckles noticed matter-of-factly.

Sonic's gaze dropped down to his feet. The echidna was right, his sneakers suspended softly in thin air, a good foot's length above the floor. "Wow... Cool."

"You think you can get at Robotnik now?"

Sonic nodded, a cocky grin spreading on his shining face. "I'm gonna kick his fat butt better than anytime before!"

"You better be." For a short moment Knuckles grinned as well, but seriousness quickly returned to his face. "But remember what I told you about the rings. You _have_ to keep collecting enough of them. Without rings you can't sustain this super form, and they're constantly spent on keeping all that energy inside of you now from burning you away. If you run out of them, you'll either be vaporized alive or at least transform back. I don't think your subconscious is suicidal, so I guess on the latter option. Still, depending on the situation it might be just as lethal."

Sonic nodded again, more serious himself this time. "I got it."

A small smile darted over the guardian's face again. "Good. The energy is not infinite. Every second you stay here is wasting it."

"Alright. Good luck watching over your nice big stone, Knux." Sonic softly floated past the echidna, needing a lot of self-control now once he moved not to do it as fast as everything inside of him demanded.

Knuckles inclined his head at him. "Good luck, Sonic."

The hedgehog had almost started dashing out of the cave when he turned back to his friend, rotating halfway around in the air, weightless. "Just tell me one more thing."

"Sure, what?"

Sonic felt a broad grin tug on his lips, threatening to pull the corners of his mouth ever so close to his ears. "I look mondo awesome, don't I?"

Knuckles groaned. "You do. Now get your glowing ass out of here."

"Ay, Sir!" Sonic laughed, and the island was a tiny point in the distance just a heartbeat later.


	13. Density of Periodic Orbits

**Density Of Periodic** **Orbits**

The wind about his ears screamed louder than it ever had, and still he heard _everything_. The small clanks of robot feet on the ships in front of him, the whizzing of energy from the portal to another world, the constant buzzings when a new group of Drakon invaders crossed it.

Crossed it to destroy HIS planet, HIS world, HIS HOME. Sonic ground his teeth, fists stretching out in front of him, blood red eyes narrowed, fixed on the astonishing, big enemy fleet in front of him. Leaving a golden streak against the dark sky, Sonic struck the first battleship like a tiny comet.

A tiny comet with brutal force.

* * *

Knuckles grimaced, his left palm lying softly pressed to the Master's surface. It knew they were near, it knew they were coming for it, and so did he.

The guardian closed his eyes, driving all feelings of anger or hatred for the enemies approaching his home from above now from his mind. Out of all things about chaos he had taught Sonic he had left out this one part even the sometimes annoyingly curious hedgehog had not thought of asking about.

He had left out the part concerning _him_.

The power came to fill him up without any of his work; it wanted to fight now as much as he did. Knuckles felt the island swerve as the energy flowing through it subsided to rush to its guardian as his own feet lost the contact to the floor.

He knew it would hold. Long enough to clear the field.

Surrounded by an aura of emerald green, Knuckles smashed through the rock blocking his way, for now, as long as the moments might last, as fast as Sonic.

* * *

"Take this, bloody creep!" Amy aimed her arrow accurately, directly driving it through one of the persecutor's armor.

The monstrous figure crumbled to its knees, just to be stricken by another arrow that caused it to sway in its place. Angrily it raised a fist to lash out at Amy. The girl screamed, raising her arms in vain attempt to protect herself. A useless, silly idea. Her small arms meant nothing against the powerful punch of a stone fist two times her size.

Amy was still screaming when the fist came down, cracking a hole with the dimensions of a crater into the ground. It was then that something in her panicked mind realized that _something_ really didn't fit in here. Ah, right… why wasn't she dead?

Tails grinned down on her, both hands locked under her armpits. "Thank goodness you finally stopped screaming; I considered dropping you to save my ears."

"Tails!" Amy relaxed in relief.

"You know, there is always a two-tailed flying fox when you need him…" Tails smiled and descended to set her down a save distance from the wounded, but enraged persecutor.

"Thank you! Now let's finish this guy off for good, before he pulls that trick again on us." The pink hedgehog was already running for their opponent again, blindly reaching for a new handful of arrows, but her fingers went uselessly through nothing but air and she skidded to a stop. "Oh no! I've run out of arrows!"

Tails stared at her. A crossbow without arrows was absolutely useless. "What now? You could… throw it at the thing?", he sheepishly remarked, just to say something at all.

"No… but I just got another idea…" Amy grinned. "Quick! Get us back to the pirate ship!"

"Let's get the Tornado! Sure!" Tails stretched his hands out at her to lift her again.

"Not just that…" Amy grinned devilishly.

* * *

The sky above Mobius had been plunged into chaos. Giant, heavily armoured and as heavily armed flying vessels suspended in the high atmosphere; the thin air carrying the noise of the huge turbines and energy jets used to keep the massive weights afloat as much as the sounds of rocket fire, laser beams and explosions raging between the different parties.

Sonic dodged just in time to avoid colliding with one of the green rays of intense radiation the Drakon laser cannons used; a few previous encounters with them had shown him that the contact did him no harm in a sense of an actual injury, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt great deal.

Twisting around while rocketing upwards so fast for a second or two the scream of the wind almost outdrowned the noise of the battle, Sonic once more looked himself down. Knuckles had tried telling him what power he held, but no words had been anything like appropriate to describe it. He'd smashed a couple of the huge flying fortresses already – by ramming them! If he flew such an attack at full speed, he didn't even experience much of a resistance; his body, brimming with chaos power, went through the metal like a hot knife through a piece of butter.

The simple 'Sonic against the rest of the world' he'd been expecting had quickly turned into something much more complicated. When Sonic had reached the enemy fleet, the war had already started without him. Robotnik's ships launched missiles and flying bombs and robot drones at the Drakon army while the Drakon Empire's battleships responded with its laser cannons. Not that Sonic would complain; it seemed their plan bringing them apart had worked out just great.

But soon, as Sonic had interfered and blown up the first of Robotnik's flying monsters in his reach, both enemy parties had realized the third player on the field was a dangerous one. At first, they had stopped firing at each other to hunt down the glowing streak of gold the hedgehog left against the dark blue sky; but once in a while a Drakon ship had found a good change to shoot at one of Robotnik's… whose companions had started a revenge strike. Sometimes both enemy groups would allow Sonic to pass without attacking him to let him distract the others and then strike out at both the other flying war machines and the yellow shining hedgehog.

Giving a yelp of pain as a new set of laser beams grazed his arm, Sonic span round and launched himself at the Drakon vessel that had fired at him, once again the incredible acceleration leaving him stunned with awe just for the single second he could waste a thought and a piece of concentration on it; then he flipped forwards and curled into a spinning ball to strike the sensitive engine section as a cannonball of spiked energy.

Smashing out of it the other side, Sonic turned to watch the momentum he'd given the ship adding to the force of the explosion that followed his attack; the huge aircraft tilted, and through Sonic's enhanced senses it seemed like slow-motion as it tumbled into the way of another, the chain reaction carrying further as it met one of Robotnik's flying machines unfortunate enough to pass.

Sonic grinned. Their armours might take a lot of blows and their weapons might be fancy and powerful, but all of the things, no matter who owned them, had a problem.

They were way too slow.

* * *

"Are you ready, Amy?", Tails quavered impatiently, drumming his thumb onto the side of his cockpit.

"Almost done!", the pink hedgehog girl replied from the flying pirate ship that travelled alongside Tails' biplane, or more concrete the Tornado travelled alongside the pirate ship.

The fox was about to tell her to hurry up when she appeared at the railing, accompanied by Porker Lewis and one of the Sky Pirates.

"I don't think this is a good idea…", the pig mumbled, his face set in doubtful frown.

"The lady is dangerous with that weapon…", the pirate noticed, grimacing at the still recent memory.

Amy grinned, leaning the weight of the big hammer onto her right shoulder. "You bet."

* * *

Knuckles softly floated above the island's main volcano crater. It was the highest point of Angel Island and he'd assumed it would be the least sensitive one.

The guardian's brow curved as his eyes tracked the shapes of the enemies melting out of the dark clouds around; one big Drakon mothership accompanied by a handful of smaller vessels. Knuckles stayed were he was, silently watching their approach. There was no need rushing into things. They were here for him. They wanted what he held, so they wouldn't hesitate to confront him. In fact, the echidna was sure that was the reason for their 'visit'.

As if having decided to prove the guardian's judgement, the big aircraft started to slowly circle the mountains while the smaller ones landed close to the crater. Knuckles still didn't move as each of them released small groups of persecutors onto the ground of his island.

One of the invaders, the markings on his armor designating him as some kind of leader, slowly walked to the edge of the crater without wasting a look down on the blistering heat of Lava Reef Zone; instead his look was firmly fixed on the green glowing form hovering above it, long spines softly waving in the thermals rising from the volcano.

"You have been awaiting us," he said calmly.

Knuckles nodded. "Yes." His sole word echoed from the crater walls around as if the very island itself was repeating its guardian's speech.

"You still have a chance to surrender to our superior powers, echidna. If you hand over the Master Emerald and the seven Chaos servers, we will spare your life."

Knuckles laughed shortly. "What kind of a life would that be? The life of a coward, of a traitor to himself. I would rather die than be humiliated like that."

"You speak brave, Guardian. The great Drakon Empire has always honoured bravery." The persecutor bowed his head in what seemed a gesture of genuine respect. "But then there will be no way around the fight. As the respect between warriors, even of different sides, commands, we can promise you that you will be buried the way we bury our heroes."

Knuckles inclined his head. "Honour demands me to offer you the same."

An odd snort of laughter came from the tall Drakon warrior. "You do not seriously expect to have a chance of winning."

A small smile tugged on Knuckles' lips, just to vanish into firm fierceness an instant later. "I do."

"We are fighting to propel the glory of the Empire; we are fighting to finally posses the great powers this planet has always held to make a difference to others. What can _you_ , all alone, put up against us?"

Knuckles' hands slowly clenched into fists at his sides. _I am not alone. My friends and allies are just about to finish off the rest of your glorious empire…. At my side is a power no-one has ever seen more than a hint at. The Master has not given his power for this kind of thing in centuries. My reasons to fight are above yours. I fight to protect the Master Emerald, I fight to protect my ancestors' legacy, I fight to protect the heritage from the past and allow for a future… for me and for others._ "I fight for my life. And I fight for my home. I fight for everything that has ever meant something to me. I will not lose."

The persecutor raised his hand, signalling to his army the talking and the formalities were over. "Then these words shall be your last, Guardian."

Knuckles once more nodded his head, the green glow around him rising to blinding level. "By the powers of chaos those shall be yours."

* * *

Sonic had almost reached the portal ring; a giant round supported by several engines located to spots all around its outer diameter. The space inside the ring sizzled and flickered in multiple colors. A frown of almost disappointment crossed Sonic's brow. He had expected a portal between two dimensions to look something more special than this. Compared with the others stuff Robotnik had built, or with things like Sky Sanctuary or the Special Zones… this looked nearly… _average_. Utterly boring.

The hedgehog was getting ready to launch himself at the big device, when he suddenly stopped dead in the middle of the movement, slowing down so fast it almost hurt. Deep in his mind, the Emeralds had cried out, the sense of something akin to a feeling sweeping over their holder.

Sonic turned over his shoulder, staring downwards to a place somewhere in the clouds. There was nothing to see, yet he had to look at the spot. It felt as if… the seven of his Chaos Emeralds were suddenly… concerned. Worried. Worried for something like a relative that was now fighting for its life.

Sonic shook his head, promising himself and the stones whose powers flowed through his body he'd check up on it as soon as he was done here; and turned back to the giant ring. It no longer floated alone, instead one of Robotnik's ships had appeared at its side.

Narrowing his eyes, Sonic scanned the small window of the bridge, so far away he'd have never made out any details normally. But the current conditions were far from normal.

A small smirk manifested on Sonic's face. "Hello, ol' Eggman."

* * *

"The hedgehog better look behind him." A dark grin covered Robotnik's face. Behind mirroring glasses, his look was fixed on what he could see through his windows. The glowing form of his archenemy's superform hovered weightlessly about half a mile in front of him, and behind the hedgehog two already slightly damaged Drakon battleships rose from the cloud layer.

"Sir, we've lost the fleet…", his assistant Grimer cut in the robotist's analysis of the tactical situation.

"What about these traitorous Osteichthyes?" Robotnik whirled around to face the green-skinned.

"Those two ships remain," Grimer stammered, taking a step backwards. "But the data is not sufficient to be sure that no troops have left the main group, Sir…"

"Then get better data!" Robotnik span back to see the Drakon ships had started firing at the hedgehog. "That persistent little pest is just too fast…"

"Do you want me to open fire at the hedgehog?", Grimer offered hesitantly.

"NO! I'll open fire _myself_ this time…"

* * *

"Closer, Tails!"

The two-tailed fox narrowed his eyes at Amy's request, his fist tightly clutching the controls of his biplane. "Much closer and he'll snatch us while we're flying past him!"

Amy turned to Tails for a second, grimacing. "I don't really appreciate that possibility, but that thing –" She indicated the hammer she'd burrowed from Captain Plunder again "– doesn't exactly have the best range of all."

Tails' ears folded backwards. She kinda had a point there. A crossbow could strike from a distance, as could the Tornado's guns (that had unfortunately proven to be completely useless against the armor of their enemy)… A hammer on the other hand was restricted by its own size and the length of Amy's arms… which weren't very long.

"Okay… as it's the last enemy left we really should get over with it …" Tails leaned his plane to the side and into a steep dive, approaching the persecutor from behind. "Get ready to aim at his arm when I pull up," he advised the pink hedgehog.

Amy nodded, concentratedly watching her goal while slowly lifting the heavy tool over her head and holding it there. It consumed nearly all of her strength keeping it balanced when Tails levelled out the dive, but then she found she could use the momentum it had given to strike the enemy's shoulder.

The hit Drakon warrior tumbled as he was spun around his axis, one arm of the cyborg body powerlessly dropping down. Having lost his sole remaining useful limb, the alien glared angrily at the small biplane quickly gaining altitude again, then he stumbled a couple last meters until almost reaching the big gold ring hovering above the dark green grass of Flickies Island's ground. Dropping out of the head, the fish-shaped inhabitant clumsily managed the way over to the gold ring, slid through it and disappeared as he retreated to his home planet.

Tails and Amy exchanged a high-five, and the fox started to circle over Flickies Island to make sure the last of the invaders was gone.

* * *

"Tails, look! It's vanishing!" Amy's voice was filled with awe as she stared down to the big golden ring on the meadow below.

Its color was dimming more and more, its shape seemed to blur as if watched through a milky glass, until no trace that it had ever existed remained.

"Wow," Tails commented. "It really worked. Guess our job is done now for sure, huh?"

Amy nodded happily.

Tails manoeuvred his biplane to fly parallel to the Sky Pirates's ship. Cheerfully waving his arm, he called over to the rest of the group. "Hey guys! How was that now, huh?"

"You two were great!", Porker shouted back, grinning broadly. "The Flock have successfully set off the bomb too."

"Now we only wait for Sonic and Knuckles," Amy noticed, sitting on the Tornado's left wing holding the big hammer.

Porker nodded. "I think it's best we head home and wait for them to call, they might be very busy…"

"Sounds sensible," Tails agreed. "Come on over to us! We got enough room for one more."

"How do you suppose I do that?", the pig questioned suspiciously.

Tails grinned. "Like Sonic and me always do. You jump down and I'll catch you."

"You're kidding!" Porker paled.

Amy shifted her hammer. "Now be a brave boy…"

The pig gulped dryly, looking between Amy and the far away ground as if unable to decide if the pink girl holding the hammer or the possible fall was more dangerous. "Oh…oh…okay…" He swallowed again before bringing himself to climb over the railing. Realizing what he was about to do, he quickly wanted to pull back, but the rapid movement upset his balance and he tilted forwards, dropping free. "WHAAAAAAAAAAA! HELP ME TAILS!"

When his back met something hard he first thought this really was the end now, but then he heard two people giggle and carefully opened his eyes that he'd squeezed shut in panic. He was sprawled on the rear seat of the small biplane and staring into Amy's and Tails' amused faces.

"Let's head home, shall we?", the young fox suggested light-heartedly.

Porker let out a deep breath. "Yes." The single word was all he managed after the shock. He sank into the seat in sweet relief and numbly watched his friends waving goodbye to the pirates.

* * *

Spinning around, Sonic barely had the time to think of dodging the laser blow coming for him. Diving to the left, it passed by only inches from his feet. The golden hedgehog followed the path of the lance of energy; if the Drakons had meant aiming at him and Robotnik's portal at the same time was to be doubted, but for once an accident spared Sonic the work of destroying the thing himself.

The second the green beam connected with the portal ring it started to glow fiercely before being torn into tiny bits by one of mightiest explosions Sonic had seen in his life, and he'd seen a lot.

The colourful field the ring had created remained stable nonetheless, but just for the time of an instant. The plate it had formed so far started to bulge, and Sonic felt himself being pulled towards it by a force stronger than most things he'd ever felt.

His hands fisted at his sides as he struggled to escape the suction, watching the two Drakon ships already being swallowed up by the hole. Robotnik's vessel twitched, its engines roaring angrily and starting to smoke.

* * *

Knuckles' face was expressionless as he watched the last of his enemies spiral slowly towards the steaming red of Lava Reef. "I promised you the right to have your bodies buried. Take it as a cremation."

Softly landing at the edge of the crater, he allowed the powers to flow back to the Emerald chamber and into the island's ground. For a moment the guardian knelt to feel for the powers' way, ensuring his home was safe now, then he slowly nodded to himself. It wasn't much, but it would be enough to keep the island afloat. Turning to look at the cloudy sky, Knuckles frowned. There couldn't be much power left.

_Sonic is taking his time. Hope he doesn't take too long…_


	14. Victory?

**Victory?**

"No! This can't be happening!" Hurrying along a corridor bathed in crimson emergency lighting, Robotnik screamed out over the blaring and whining of a felt thousand of alarm sirens in disbelief. "Impossible!"

The shaking of his aircraft's floor told the scientist better as he was thrown off his feet another time. He reached the escape pot with his last power and literally dropped into it. "Retreat…", he gasped out, a hand in a glove slightly blackened by smoke falling onto the big red button to eject the capsule.

Two seconds after it came down, the last of Robotnik's battleships was eaten up by a dozen of fireballs radiating from the overpowered engines.

Ten second later even the fireballs were no more.

* * *

Panting hard, Sonic turned around to see Robotnik's flying fortress explode and the remaining wreckage being swallowed up by the collapsing dimension portal. If that had been finally enough to fill it up or if it had just reached its lifespan, Sonic would never know as it flared one last time before vanishing.

For a moment the hedgehog stared at the sudden emptiness in front of him before slowly starting to descend towards the thing he'd planned to check up on, but as he dived into the clouds, it was suddenly gone. Sonic tilted his head. "Seems someone solved his problems himself…", he mumbled.

Vague shapes of a landmass were showing between the clouds below him, when his steady glow started to flicker erratically. "Huh?..."

What had happened to all that energy that had filled him to the point of almost bursting? Sonic stared at his hands, at the glow becoming harder and harder to see until the blue fur became visible beneath the golden shine. He tried to reach for the energy that had been flowing through him like his very own blood for a short time that felt like a life span, but his nerves seemed suddenly numb for it. There was no chaos energy left for him to feel. And the sudden lack for a sense to feel what he had put so much efforts into learning to feel was for a moment as if he had never been even close to any Chaos Emeralds... As if it all had been just a dream.

And suddenly he was… just a tired little hedgehog… And then...

 _...falling_ …

* * *

A sharp pain tore through thick darkness, directly followed by a tiny noise. Sonic twitched, in no way really knowing if the whimper was his or not, and his hands barely found their way to his stomach from where now another cramp shot a wave of nausea through him.

Something sticky and utterly sweet was pushed between his teeth, reflex biting down on whatever it was. Sonic blinked slowly, the darkness was replaced by a blurry sea of colors, and another piece of almost too sweet stuff was shoved into his mouth. His ears winced weakly to the sounds around, but the words just washed over him without getting a sense of meaning.

Several more words and sticky pieces of food had followed until the hedgehog reached a grade of awareness that allowed a few more impressions to leak into his mind and he found himself sitting, not on his own but a strong hold around his shoulders. "Humpf…?", he choked out, remembered to swallow the food and tried again. "Knux?"

"Here, drink that."

Not really an answer, but certainly Knuckles. The left of the echidna's big, white-gloved hands swam into view, and Sonic reached for the big kind of thing between mug and bowl it held. In spite of feeling dry as if he'd been trying not quite successfully gurgling with sand Sonic didn't take more than one gulp of the liquid; if the stuff before had been _almost_ too sweet, this drink was clearly far beyond 'almost'.

"What the hell is that?", he mumbled wearily, but his small voice already carried his disapproval. "Tastes like sugared water!"

"It might be because that's what it is," Knuckles commented neutrally. "Now drink up already, Sonic, we have to get some energy back into you. See how you're shivering?" His hand shoved under the mug to force the stuff down his throat, but Sonic was still not near less dazed enough to truly protest anyway. The blue hedgehog just shook himself in distaste as Knuckles took the mug from his grip, and numbly watched the echidna reach behind himself and pick up a big, flat piece of wood with several staples of dried and fresh fruits on it. "Can you sit by yourself?"

Sonic managed a distracted nod without looking at Knuckles when the echidna let go of him; his eyes mysteriously locked to the food and his stomach giving a demanding, painful growl.

It was not before half of the plate's content had found its way down into Sonic's belly that he was able to really think. Forcing at least his eyes away from the fruits while his hands still busily stuffed them one by one into his mouth, the blue hedgehog cast a look around.

The room was small and of a triangular shape; two of the walls natural rock, the third made from branches, the roof seemed to consist of huge leaves. There wasn't much worth being called furniture; the corner across of him hosted a small fireplace, then there was the heap of plaids and blankets he was sitting on, and the stump-like thing Knuckles sat on.

"Better now?", the echidna asked when the hedgehog's eyes stopped on him.

Sonic nodded distractedly. "Where are we?"

"One of the many safe places I got to go to all over the island," Knuckles replied willingly.

Sonic blinked, strained his memory, failed, and looked at the echidna again. "What happened? How did I get here?"

"Um.. I.. carried you? It wasn't that you could have went by yourself... You were pretty much old cold… You overestimated yourself, you didn't notice when you had used up the chaos energy the Emeralds could give to you and used too much of your own. I guess it's you're lacking the experience. No big surprise here…" There was no reproach in Knuckles' voice, it was calm and quiet and Sonic found he was just stating facts. "I couldn't just let you lie there, could I?" Knuckles shrugged.

Sonic smiled a little and swallowed his pride. "Thank you… And… I'm sorry."

The echidna's eyebrows went up. "Huh?"

"I'm… _sorry_ ," Sonic repeated quietly.

"I got you," Knuckles noticed, frowning, "but what for?"

"For… being such a burden to you, keeping you from doing… whatever you might do normally… and a lot of other stuff." Sonic looked up at the echidna and shook his head at him when the guardian opened his mouth to say something. "Let me finish, I'm nothing like good with things like that." He received a nod and took that as his cue to continue. "It's just that you always were pretty clear on saying this is our war and you want nothing to do with it. Still, you helped me out a lot this time, and I think I didn't say thank you yet. I'm doing it now. _Thank you, Knuckles_."

Now the echidna looked pretty much as embarrassed as Sonic felt and there was a moment of awkward silence before the guardian broke it. "It… it became my war long ago. I think I failed to notice, that's all…" For one of the rare times Sonic had seen in the past weeks, a smile appeared on Knuckles' face and wasn't washed off by stoic seriousness again. It genuinely stayed there on his lips. "So, you're welcome, I suppose."

Sonic felt a smile tug on his own lips as well. "Heh…" He didn't know what else to say anymore, but he didn't seem the only one.

Knuckles just inclined his head at him, still smiling, and abruptly changed the topic. "Do you remember what happened to the Emeralds?"

For a moment Sonic just stared at him, the change of subjects a tad too fast for him, then when he got Knuckles' question down he briefly closed his eyes in thought, but shook his head. All he could recall were the fights, the energy suddenly fading and then blurrily waking up here. "No, nothing. Sorry." He shrugged in what he thought would go by as an apologizing gesture.

"Then they probably warped to the Special Zone, that weird – what did Porker say once? Alternated part of our world… a pocket-dimension within our normal one?" The echidna shrugged as well, to Sonic's surprise he didn't really seem anything like angry because Sonic lost the magic gems.

Sonic grinned. "At least this really sounds like something Porker would say. Talking of him: Can we call the rest of the gang from here? We need a victory party!"

Knuckles groaned. "We need to find the Emeralds back…"

Head tilted aside, Sonic studied him for a moment. "Do you really _always_ think about work and stuff? Someone ever told you you need to chill?"

Cocking a brow in what looked almost like exasperation, Knuckles looked at the hedgehog. "You did," he noticed matter-of-factly, tone dry like a desert wind.

Sonic grinned. "Heh. So, after I've been a good kid and listened to all the stuff about Chaos Emeralds you told me, now _you_ be a good kid and listen to what I say for once."

To Sonic's surprise, the guardian suddenly chuckled. "I'll give it a thought."

Shrugging, Sonic took a last bite of the little remaining food and spoke through a mouthful of fruit. "Maybe that's all I can ask for." He fell silent, chewing on the fruit, then swallowed and looked at Knuckles again. "What'd you do while I was up there trashing battleships?"

A small frown slipped onto the echidna's brow. "Uh... Protecting this island?"

For a few seconds Sonic just returned his look. "You used the Master Emerald," he said then, making clear it wasn't meant as a question.

Knuckles nodded, in spite of Sonic's expectations he'd deny everything. "Yes. You noticed?"

"The Emeralds did." Sonic shrugged. "Call me crazy, but they were… worried. …And I was worried too, I guess." Knuckles' expression didn't change and Sonic assumed he wouldn't call him crazy just now. He looked at the other a little longer, feeling his ears perk upright and when he spoke up again curiosity was evident. "Can you do what I could do? I mean, fly around, glow and all that?"

The guardian nodded, not quite as hesitant as Sonic would have guessed. "Yes. That, and a lot of things you probably wouldn't believe. The Chaos Emeralds are powerful, but the Master has the power to _control_ them. It is a lot more powerful than all seven servers together…"

Sonic blinked a few times, trying to get used to the idea and imagine what you could do with something _more_ powerful than the Chaos Emeralds. Already their energy and the possibilities you had when controlling them were beyond what he could grasp… "Wow. What can you do? And… why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't ask. And I have to keep something up my sleeve, don't I?" Knuckles smirked, cutting his answer at that, falling silent and just looking at the hedgehog.

"I get it; you're not going to tell me anything…" For a moment Sonic considered if he should try pouting, but it seemed ridiculous and he smirked back instead. "Did you at least rock?"

Smirk growing to a genuine smile, Knuckles nodded. "You bet."

Sonic nodded back, grinning. "Then I guess I can live with it."

"There's not really anything else you can do, hedgehog," Knuckles noticed.

"You're pretty intend on having the last word at the moment, aren't you?" Sonic was still grinning.

Knuckles folded his arms, in relaxation leaning backwards against the wall behind his seat. "Yes."

Sonic chuckled, and left it at that.

* * *

An unfamiliarly bright grin lay on Porker Lewis' face when he entered the kitchen. "I've got good news and bad news," he exclaimed. "Which do you want first?"

Tails looked up from his toast and Amy turned around from where she was pouring coffee into a couple of mugs.

"The bad news," Amy decided, "seeing that look on your face they can't be too bad."

Porker inclined his head. "We still have no traces of Robotnik. Wreckage of all sorts over half of Mobius, but no clue if he managed to escape or not. Nobody has seen his slimy green assistant either..."

Tails shrugged. "If he escaped, we'll get him again. All his robot ship things were smashed again, so he'll be out of commission for a long while I guess." Showing just how little the not quite new 'news' disturbed him, the young fox relaxedly took a huge bite of his food.

"Tails is right," Amy agreed, turning back to the cups, "we've always dealt with him; if he comes back we'll deal with that too." The pink girl paused a moment. "So, now that we rated the bad news as not too bad, can we get the good news?"

Porker smiled. "I've just talked to Knuckles."

"And? What did he say?", Tails curiously demanded to know through half a mouthful of breakfast.

"He's found Sonic," Porker replied, taking a seat aside of the fox.

Amy almost dropped the coffee pot as she spun all the way to the others. "Is he alright?"

Porker nodded. "Knuckles says Sonic's really exhausted after all of this, but he's sure he'll have him coddled up when we get up there."

"Sonic wants us to get him home?", Amy asked. "Aww, this must have been very stressful for him. I'm sure he wants some quality time now… maybe go on a date with me…" A dreamy smile grew on her face.

Tails groaned and shook his head. "Somehow I don't think so…"

Porker shrugged. "I somewhat doubt that and really… Knuckles didn't sound like that. He said Sonic wants us to come up for a 'victory party'."

Amy didn't reply, still caught in her daydream.

Instead, Tails did. "Hey! A party! That's awesome! Can we have a barbeque? Can we? !"

Porker grinned at the small fox excitedly looking at him, cerulean eyes shining and twin tails wagging quickly. "I don't think Sonic or Knuckles got the party planned. I don't see any reason against your idea."

"Yay! Did you hear that Amy?" Tails reached to shake her. "We're gonna have a party!"

Being shaken suddenly, Amy snapped out of her fantasies. She blinked. "What did you say?"

"Party!", Tails shouted, almost into her ear.

Lost, Amy turned to Porker. "What?"

The pig smiled. "Never mind."


	15. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

A soft breeze was brushing through his quills and Sonic felt them gently move in reply to its touch. The blue hedgehog let his gaze slowly wander around. The sky above was still cloudy, but the sun was shooting glimpses through the clouds every now and then and the air was mildly warm. Apparently the night had gone by without rain and the forests and meadows were dry.

Sonic guessed it was around midday now. He'd slept through the past night like dead and when he'd woken up he'd found Knuckles was already having breakfast. Sonic had quickly seen to he got some of it as well before the echidna could finish it all without him. The hedgehog smirked at the memory, pondering for a moment if there was any chance Knuckles would manage to eat all the food before he did. Probably there wasn't.

After they finished breakfast Knuckles had claimed he'd go for a walk around the island and Sonic had tagged along without asking where exactly the guardian was planning to go. He'd found out about an hour later when their rather quiet walk ended at the temple ruins Sonic had seen already.

Now they were seated at top of the long stairway, on the highest of the treads. Sonic leaned against the remains of a kind of pillar next to the right end of the stairs, his legs stretched out over the two treads below the one he sat on, feet relaxedly crossed at the ankles. Knuckles sat at about the middle of the broad stairs, feet one tread below him and his forearms leaned onto his knees. He had not spoken much since the morning, but Sonic had gotten used to the fact the echidna could go without words for a lot longer than most other people he knew. Maybe it was just because he rarely had company to talk to and was quite used to not saying much, Sonic thought.

The hedgehog himself was another matter; there were quite a few things he wanted to ask the guardian while he still had the chance and he cast about for a way to start a conversation without seeming too… _obnoxious_ to the silent echidna. Once more his eyes trailed over the ruins, the fallen pillars, over the few lines of golden, spinning rings that floated between the stony remains, back to the large altar they sat on and he thought he had it.

"You… like this place a lot, don't you?", he said quietly, watching his companion for a reaction.

Knuckles' head turned to him, his gaze returning from some unknown place between the ruins to meet Sonic's. "Yes. Is it that obvious?"

"Well, kinda." Sonic shrugged. "Last time you brought me here, okay. You wanted to show me this writing on the wall about chaos and power… But if you had any reason to bring me here this time, I fail to see it."

The red echidna chuckled briefly. "I guess you're right. I could have gone anywhere on the island with you… but you said it, I like this place. I guess I like it a lot." Knuckles' eyes moved away from Sonic to roam over the ruins again. "I come here quite often, just sit at the altar's top. Sometimes I try to imagine what it was like, thousands of years ago when all of this was brand new." He pointed an arm at one of the still partly upright pillars. "Each of those seven pillars around the altar held one of the Chaos Emerald at its top. And right there," he turned over his shoulder, indicating the pedestal at the shrine's middle, "right there the Master Emerald was kept. The carving in the stone where it's supposed to be sitting is still there. Like new. As if it waited thousands of years for the Master to return to its place again."

"... Wow." Sonic looked at his friend. "That was… about the longest speech of you I ever heard that wasn't to explain me how Chaos Emeralds work. You _really_ have to like this place a lot." He grinned.

Knuckles shrugged a little. "Yeah, I think so..."

For a moment Sonic was silent. "Then… I guess it's kind of an honour you brought me here."

The echidna smirked, but didn't say anything.

Sonic tilted his head at him when there came no other reaction anymore after a couple of seconds. "Are you going to do it?"

"Do what?" Knuckles raised an eyebrow.

"Bring the Master Emerald back here. I mean…" He shrugged, looking around again. "A bit of weeding and stuff… and this place probably doesn't look like new but pretty damn awesome. It has much more… uh… _atmosphere_ than these dark tunnels and caves. You'll get depressed sitting down there all the time."

A small smile was on the echidna's face now. "And that's of your concern why?"

Sonic shrugged his shoulders. "You know what you told me. Power enriched by the heart. What are we gonna do if you get weird ideas because you're sitting in a dark, lonely cave with that big Emerald of yours? Besides, I don't like my buddies being sad or something."

"I'm not your buddy, hedgehog," Knuckles grumbled, but the little twinkle in his eyes didn't match the tone properly.

"Whatever." Sonic grinned. "But since we mentioned your giant Emerald already… There was something I wanted to ask you."

"Yeah?" Knuckles leaned on his knees again.

"You said there are things you can do with it I wouldn't believe. I'm quite sure if I ask for most of them you're gonna tell me right in the face I should mind my own business." The hedgehog twitched his ears. "But since it kinda concerns me as well… Say I come and take the Chaos Emeralds to do… something. Could you stop me from doing it?"

"Yes." The guardian's sole word was spoken almost softly, but there was something very definite about it.

"How? What could you do if I – or someone else – just came and took the Chaos Emeralds to turn super?"

Knuckles smirked, a small, almost hidden smirk, but it was giving his face something superior Sonic had never seen on it before. "I can take them from you, or that imaginary someone else. If I don't let it, if the Master Emerald doesn't let it, nobody does anything at all with any Chaos Emeralds. If I had wanted, I could have knocked the Emeralds right out of you after you turned super in the Hidden Palace. I wouldn't even need to turn anything like super _myself_ for that."

Sonic blinked, for a few moments just staring at Knuckles. He remembered how much strain it had cost him achieving control over the Chaos Emeralds, and there Knuckles was saying he could just take these Emeralds from him anytime he wanted without breaking a sweat. It took another few seconds until the hedgehog realized something else that followed this concept and he almost glared at Knuckles. "You know, you could have told me."

"No." The echidna shook his head, not seeming to mind being glared at.

"I was scared out of my mind!" Strangely, it didn't really mean much admitting this aloud now. It was over. He knew he wouldn't ever need to be scared of the Chaos Emeralds again. He'd won; and now being scared of them in the past was… well, the past. Still, he remembered how being scared felt quite well, and Knuckles could have greatly reduced that fear… if he'd just _hinted_ at what he could do. "If you had just told me you can always stop me from doing anything bad, I wouldn't have –"

"That's exactly it, Sonic," Knuckles interrupted him. "Had I told you what I told you now, you probably wouldn't have been as scared of the Emeralds, of turning super as you were. And that's why I couldn't say it. Chaos is power enriched by the heart. I gave you all the knowledge you needed to learn controlling the powers. I told you how to use your talent. But there was something I couldn't tell you, I couldn't really help you with. There was something you needed to do alone. When you came here, I could see the panic in your eyes when I just _spoke_ of the Chaos Emeralds. You were more afraid of them than the mouse is afraid of the hawk. It was your biggest obstacle, all the time you were here. You didn't only need to control the Emeralds; you needed to overcome this fear. On your own. It had to be a fight. There was nothing I could do to get you around this. You needed to beat your demons alone."

"Hmm…" Sonic nodded slowly, beginning to get the echidna's point.

"Maybe it helps you now that if you had failed in the end, there wouldn't have been a crazy Super Sonic wrecking havoc on the planet. I could have put a stop to it. But I didn't need to. I _knew_ I wouldn't need to." The guardian smiled and suddenly Sonic felt proud. Suddenly he realized how much he'd achieved. Maybe it needed a little time for all of that to sink in…

The hedgehog grinned. "Was that a compliment, Knux?"

"Take it as you wish." Knuckles eyed him for a moment. "Any more questions?"

Sonic blinked. "Actually… yeah. You think there's any chance I could learn the teleporting thing?"

The echidna chuckled. "If you find those Emeralds you scattered back…"

"Bang. I probably deserved that…" Sonic grimaced.

Knuckles' eyes surprisingly softened. "Nah. I'm just kidding. I couldn't expect you to know when to stop. But like most things, also chaos control gets easier the more often you do it. If you're ever to turn super again, you should be able to do it faster, and it shouldn't feel as complicated as the first time. You should also be able to feel when you're beginning to run low on energy." The guardian paused briefly, looking Sonic over. "You got the talent, sharp senses for the powers and a mind that proved it's strong enough to bear them. There is much you can learn if you try."

Again a wave of pride washed over Sonic. "Like for example?"

"Maybe one day you'll learn not only turning yourself super, but also transferring a bit of the energy to someone else to give them something similar to a super form as well. It's possible, and you're strong enough for that. You just need practice. You might also manage the teleport thing. In theory, it works like any other chaos move. You tap into the Emerald's power and strongly focus on what you want to do." Knuckles shrugged. "But trust me, a teleport is told to be complicated and difficult to do. You should start with something easier if you want to keep practicing on your own."

"I'd have never thought I'd say that, or even _think_ that, but I almost find this chaos stuff cool. A little too complicated for my tastes, but still cool." Sonic grinned.

Knuckles shook his head a little, chuckling quietly. "Well, when you got some free time, you can try a few basic things. You don't need an Emerald for it, just pick up a good amount of rings."

"Rings?" Sonic quirked one eyebrow.

"Yeah, rings." Knuckles nodded. "A ring is the most basic form of chaos energy. They're everywhere on Mobius and actually rather easy to handle. Next time you pick up a few, just try to concentrate on feeling their energy. Each ring contains a little bit of each sort of chaos power. Most obvious are the healing and life energies; that's what everybody knows. But also the other powers are there. In your case, as it's the one you handle best, try finding the speed fragment of the power. You managed to use the dark blue Chaos Emerald to boost your running speed. You should be able to do the same with the blue part of the rings' energy. In fact, I assume that's at least _partly_ what your ring dash move does. Or the jump dashes in mid-air and your crazy homing attack… Did you ever notice the blue trailing you when you do these things? I'm not the only one using chaos energy on instinct. You've been doing it for quite a while without knowing."

Sonic stared at the echidna. "Oh... Really? I can't actually see these things, you know? But if you're right, that's kinda cool." The hedgehog was growing used to the idea quicker than he would have assumed. In his mind, he was already enrolling scenarios of him running around collecting rings, breaking speed record after speed record. "That sounds like it would be pretty useful… and a lot of fun."

Knuckles smiled. "I should have known for you it'd all be just a ticket for a crazy ride…"

"Hey, is it my fault these things are so much fun?" Sonic grinned.

The guardian shrugged. "Probably we can say you deserve a little reward after saving the world."

"Again." Sonic was still grinning. "It's almost becoming a routine."

"Show-off."

"Party pooper." Sonic stuck out his tongue.

Knuckles frowned for a moment, then another smile fought its way through. "I didn't oppose to your barbeque, did I?"

"To my endless surprise, you didn't, no." Sonic laughed. "A few more years of hard work and maybe you'll become a social person."

The echidna folded his arms, grumbling under his breath.

"Chill out, I'm just kidding." Sonic felt another grin tug on his lips. His green eyes moved from Knuckles to the ruins at the stairway's end again. There were still the same scattered lines of golden rings like before. The blue hedgehog rocked his right foot a little where it rested over the ankle of the left, again shooting a glance at the rings. "I'm wondering…"

"Don't. It probably won't even work."

"What?" Sonic looked back to the echidna.

"If you were thinking about giving the ring thing a try, wait. At least a few days, better a week." Knuckles' head was tilted aside slightly as he watched Sonic, one of the long spines half falling over his face.

Sonic's ears tipped backwards. "Why?"

"You gravely weakened your chaos field while you were turned super. You can think of it like almost a sort of injury. It needs time to heal. That's actually normal." Knuckles shrugged. "The Master Emerald's energy level is just enough to keep the island afloat and everything working on it after I used it. The Chaos Emeralds got drained so much you lost your super form." The echidna's amethyst eyes roamed Sonic. "In a way, the same applies to us. We're drained after what we did with the Emeralds. That happens all the time when you do some complicated, big chaos controlling thing."

Sonic blinked slowly. He remembered how awful he'd felt when he had woken up in Knuckles' hut, and how fast he'd slept the last night. He felt almost tired even now. "I think I get that… Makes sense, I guess."

"Good." Knuckles leaned backwards, placing his hands on the rock behind his back, and tilted his nose upwards into a few shy beams of sunlight that were falling through the clouds.

For a moment Sonic watched him, then the formulation the guardian had used sank in. _Us. We._ "It's not just me? You too?"

Knuckles gave him a side-glance. "Yes, of course. Probably not as badly, but of course I don't get around after effects. It's natural they're there."

"Ah." Sonic shrugged, deciding he wouldn't give the matter too much thought. Instead, he looked around again. Knuckles had closed his eyes, clearing enjoying the warm sun on his face. It was actually pretty cozy, Sonic thought. He could imagine pretty well doing a Knuckles and kick back for the rest of the day here. All that was missing was a little snack.

Knuckles lifted one of his eyelids when he heard Sonic stand up and gave the hedgehog a questioning look.

"I'm hungry. I'll go pick up a few of those fruits that look like giant green apples but totally don't taste like apples. I saw a tree in the forest when we came here." Sonic smiled down on the red echidna. "You want some, too?"

The Emerald guardian nodded. "Yeah, if you're asking like that, I'll take some. Thanks."

Sonic grinned and slowly strolled down the stairway, for a few moments leaving the echidna to his ancient temple.

* * *

A disaster. A total, terrible disaster.

Robotnik glared out of the small, round window of the escape capsule. Outside, there was nothing but water to see and the capsule was slowly bobbing up and down, tossed around by the waves.

Out of all places… why here? And, while he was at it, why _him_? Why him _again_?

Just two minutes after he had lost his last battle ship to that terrible pest of a blue spiked rodent, the escape capsule had landed almost gently in the ocean, impact softened by the perfectly timed firing of parachutes.

The only thing that had worked perfectly that day. Now, his portal was gone, his fleet was gone, the Drakons were gone. But, at least, he'd had his revenge! As far as Robotnik was concerned, those traitorous fish had been hit even harder than him – if that was possible. The portal was gone, and they had been sucked through it as it collapsed, back into their universe, together with tons over tons of other, equally useless _wreckage_. In Robotnik's mind, they could rot there. For now, and forever.

He'd lost a lot of material, a lot of badniks, a lot of plans, his assistant. Dismissively Robotnik noticed he would be probably better on his own. A one man show. His show. And the world would watch.

After all, he was still here. Still on this planet with all of its idiotic little critters, blue hedgehogs on top of it… but this planet also had the Chaos Emeralds. Resources. Waiting for him…

Robotnik slumped back into the actually somewhat comfy seat. Two days had passed since the landing. Two days he was being bumped around by the ocean in this tiny capsule. He guessed it would be another few until he reached the shore… somewhere. What left him with another few days to think over his work, his past, what exactly had gone wrong. What he had to change, necessarily.

He'd once had control, over the entire blasted planet. But Sonic had taken it away from him again. The Mobians didn't fear the fearful dictator anymore. They didn't fear _him_ anymore. It was driving him nuts! He'd had all this attention. This world had been going round on his bidding. Or that was what he liked to think.

But this time had passed, and he couldn't get it back the way he wanted. Apparently no-one shivered at his sight anymore. Actually, it was even worse. They were making fun at his sight. They were calling him names. 'Eggman' was the most famous one. The hedgehog had thought of it, his friends had quickly adapted it, and now when he looked at the news it was as if the entire world thought that mocking ridicule was actually his name. They didn't want to fear him anymore; they wanted to laugh about him. About his robots, his plans, his looks.

Well then. Robotnik suddenly found a grin on his face. Let them laugh then. Let them make fun of him. He'd even go with it. If he had to call himself by that ridiculous excuse of a name, then be it. He suddenly saw a benefit in it all, even in the shame. If they made fun of him, they would lower their guard. If the world thought of him as a crazy madman, it would be all the easier proving them wrong and claiming back what was his in the end.

Robotnik nodded to himself. He would start a campaign. An image campaign. He'd give them the ridiculous maniac they were looking for. And while everybody was laughing, he'd show them what he was made of. The robotist laughed, crossing his hands over his 'namesake' belly. While everybody was laughing, he would start another project. Another plan. One that wouldn't fail him.

For months it lingered on in the back of his mind. He had just never had the time to go through it all. He'd found, or rather re-found, his grandfather's diary. Gerald Robotnik's diary. The diary of a genius par excellance like himself, and of this genius' plans, projects, weapons. And if Ivo wasn't mistaken, it would give him exactly the thing he needed. Right in his hands… It was like an invitation, wasn't it?

Robotnik grinned. He'd prepare himself. And in the end, he'd make his move. The world would watch. At his mercy.

* * *

_Some people think a beautiful sunset naturally belongs to a beautiful day_ , Knuckles mused. But while it was indeed true that the sight of a clear blue sky slowly melting into a haze of yellow and orange was wonderful, you rarely considered the amazing, dramatic beauty of a cloudy sunset.

The center mountains were beset with thickly stapled clouds that then covered the entire sky, just small gaps between them adding a touch of blue. The clouds themselves seemed to form a board above the world, ending slightly away from the horizon; and from underneath that layer the complete sky was glowing orange; somewhere at the half of the round the light starting to fade into yellow, then white and a soft bluish grey. In the middle of the brightest shine, a big reddish ball hung seemingly tied to the Island's edge. The hazy air let thick beams of warm light appear like lances aiming for the floating island's forms and stabbing into the clouds above. As if in answer to that, they glowed in all shades between pink and purple, dowsing the landscape with a warm light.

A warm breeze caressed his face and beside him, Tails took a deep breath. "You know, I'm just starting to pity all those people down on the surface," he said quietly.

"Huh?" Knuckles made an irritated sound.

"They can't see this. You've been in the cities; they all just rush from one place to the next, always in a hurry to get somewhere. Not many people take the time to look at something like that." Tails indicated the beautiful sky. "I mean, in a few minutes this will all be gone forever. And everybody who didn't see it missed on a hell of a beautiful sight."

Knuckles turned his head towards the little fox. "You've just phrased something very wise, Tails." The echidna paused for a short moment and then decided to phrase his thought aloud. "Old philosophers of my people once said: Life is not a chain of events, it is what happens in between."

Tails blinked, blue eyes thoughtfully looking up at Knuckles for a moment. "I think I will have to remember that."

The guardian smiled silently, eyes returning to the spectacle of light, suddenly pondering if the sunset would have been the same without that young fox standing aside of him, if that thought about life would have come to please his mind if he'd been by himself. Who knew? Maybe something else would have come to his mind, maybe he wouldn't have gone here and missed on the view like Tails had said many people certainly did right now, maybe he would have seen something else instead. The power the world was based upon was chaos, and there was no way predicting how something that happened influenced anything else that happened as a result. Maybe the sun was just setting right there, right now because he and Tails stood here. Would it be the same without anybody seeing and musing over it?

"We should tell Sonic when he comes back," Tails interrupted Knuckles' thinking. "It sounds like something he'll like."

Knuckles turned back to the fox. "It's something to say in the right moment. And in just a few minutes, the moment will be very likely over."

"Hm."

The echidna smiled softly. "But I'm sure he knows anyway. It means you should enjoy the moment when it comes and Sonic always lives the moment, doesn't he?"

Tails' face lit up. "Where is he anyway?"

Knuckles turned around to look down on the clearing Porker, Amy and Sonic had been about to prepare a campfire. The pig and the hedgehog girl were standing beside a considerably high heap of wood; Amy gesturing wildly at the clouds and the slight, beginning rain, and Porker hurrying around. Sonic was nowhere to be seen.

The echidna smiled and turned back to the fox cub at his side. "I think I have an idea."

Tails beamed. "You might be right there." Both of them started to laugh.

* * *

Flickies Island was a peaceful place.

The little blue bird flicked its wings, gliding on a soft wind through the skies of its home. The gentle wind ruffled the grass and the leaves in the forests, white waves softly rolled out onto the sand, hundreds of small, colorful birds sang their songs to the peaceful morning. Flickies Island's nature was glad to have its solitude restored after everybody who didn't belong here had left again.

Below the tiny creature's flight path, the forest was a colorful beauty with light green meadows under dark green trees, sapphire lakes and clear creeks, and here and there a couple lines of gold spinning rings twinkled mystically in the sunlight. From time to time one compound would just vanish, to let others appear someplace else.

A never ending circle.

On a small clearing, a single ring materialized, transparent at first, the golden color growing only slowly, until it was a fine gold resembling its smaller brothers, just its size indicating its different nature.

The little bird chirped. Everything was back to normal.

Flickies Island was a peaceful place.

For now.

* * *

Sonic slowly wandered away from the group, chuckling to himself as he heard Amy complain loudly about the inappropriate weather for that kind of celebration. Stopping after a few more steps, just out of earshot and still already on his own, Sonic didn't much mind the rain now. Sure, for the barbeque sun would have been the greatest thing, but the rain had something about it, too.

The hedgehog stretched both arms out, palms upwards, and tipped his head back, sticking his nose into the light shower; green eyes closing with content as the tiny, cooling droplets hit his face, rolling down his warm cheeks, slowly, one by one.

For almost a minute he stood perfectly still. Then, out of sudden, simple urge to do so he couldn't explain where it came from, he ran out onto the field before him, leaning forwards into the wind that was growing stronger quickly.

_Faster_. The image of the surroundings melted into a blur of colors at the edges of his vision, like a tunnel that didn't know branches or stops. There was just forwards.

_Faster_. Into the wind. Pushing closer to that spot somewhere in space in front of him that always kept fading into this twirl of impressions to be replaced by another, as unreachable one.

_Faster!_ Giving in to the frenzy of speed that had so easily caught him now; his body warm and filled with that exact kind of feeling that said: 'Everything working, everything perfect, now go and RUN!'.

And following this command, Sonic felt the smile already flash over his face. His entire body was filling with every step with a sense of satisfaction he'd experienced just rarely, the one you normally got to feel when you've finally gotten out for a run after days of suffering from the cabin fever, when it is as if you've been filled with bottled-up, explosive energy that finally can get out. Just that he hadn't known anything like it was there until a moment ago.

Almost enchanted by them, Sonic listened to the small sounds of rain falling onto the ground around as he ran, barely audible over the rushing air about his ears. He took deep breaths of the crisp air, for just a second wondering how long his nose hadn't really tasted the wind - and just the wind. Nothing else. The smile grew to a bright grin.

By now he was beginning to get soaked and had no real clue where exactly he was running anymore. He didn't care. It didn't matter. Without knowing it, this run, right here and right now, was just what he'd needed all along. And somehow he hadn't felt that good in…yeah, _centuries_ at least.

With every thud of his feet on the ground, with every fast beat of his heart, with every drop of rain falling onto his skin, he felt _alive_. And at that precise moment in time, nothing else mattered.

Right now it wasn't important if he got wet or not. Not even to Sonic. It didn't matter if their victory was possibly just a temporary one, if in a month or two Robotnik would pop out of some hideout and start another attempt taking over the world. Right now all of his usual worries were so far away _nothing_ mattered.

And if it was really just for a few days, Sonic found himself feeling the maybe only way he'd ever really wanted to feel.

Free.

_The End_


End file.
